Gap Thinking in Fraction Pair Comparisons Is Not Whole Number Thinking: Is This What Early Equivalence Thinking Sounds Like?

Gap thinking has been categorised as one of several whole number strategies that interfere with early fraction understanding. This study showed that this claim is not supported by interview data of Grade 6 students' gap thinking explanations during a fraction pair comparison task. A correlation with equivalence performance was uncovered, leading to the suggestion that the additive nature of gap thinking may actually reveal the (erroneous) additive nature of students' early engagement with equivalence concepts. (Contains 2 figures and 2 tables.) [For the full report, "Shaping the Future of Mathematics Education. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (33rd, Freemantle, Western Australia, Australia, July 3-7, 2010)," see ED520764.]