Collaborative Group for Research in Mathematics Education

COMPLETED RESEARCH PROJECTS

Young children's ideas about number words

This project studied young children's forms of thinking about the written system of in the earliest stages of schooling. The findings suggest there is a type of knowledge that is 'implicit' in so far as children seem to be unaware of it. For example, the project found that many young children were consistently right in judgments about the size of written numerals, but were clearly unaware of their 'reasons' for deciding which of three numbers was the highest. Following Berry & Dienes (1996), the implications are that the difficulty in eliciting the knowledge corresponds to the fact that children lack meta-knowledge about their knowledge.

The research team for this project included Gary Davis and Corina Silveira.

The research was supported by an ORS award.

Publications

Silveira, C. & Davis, G. (1998), Implicit processes in early number learning. Pre-print. University of Southampton.

Young children's ideas about number words and scripts and the connection with their progress in arithmetic
by Corina Silveira
Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Southampton, School of Education, 2000.

Some relevant background literature to this project:

Berg, J. (1994) Philosophical Remarks on Implicit Knowledge and Educational Theory. In D. Tirosh (Ed) Implicit and Explicit Knowledge: An Educational Approach. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Berry, D & Dienes, Z. (1993) Implicit Learning. Theoretical and Empirical Issues. Hove: LEA, Publishers.

Berry, D. (1996) How implicit is implicit learning? In G. Underwood (Ed.) Implicit Cognition, pp. 203-225. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Clement, J. (1994). Use of Physical Intuition and Imaginistic Simulation in Expert Problem Solving. In D. Tirosh (Ed) Implicit and Explicit Knowledge: An Educational Approach. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Dienes, Z & Perner, J. (1996) Implicit knowledge in people and connectionist networks. In G. Underwood (Ed.) Implicit Cognition, pp. 227-255. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dienes, Z. & Berry, D. (1997) Implicit learning: Below the subjective threshold. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 4(1), pp. 3-23

diSessa, A. A. (1994) Speculations on the Foundations of Knowledge and Intelligence. In D. Tirosh (Ed) Implicit and Explicit Knowledge: An Educational Approach. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Olson, D. R. & Campbell, R. (1994). Representation and Misrepresentation: On the beginnings of Symbolization in Young Children. In D. Tirosh (Ed) Implicit and Explicit Knowledge: An Educational Approach. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Reber, A. (1993) Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge. An Essay on the Cognitive Unconscious. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Steffe, L. P. (1994) Children's Construction of Meaning for Arithmetical Words: A Curriculum Problem. In Tirosh D. (Ed) Implicit and Explicit Knowledge: An Educational Approach. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Steffe, L. P., von Glaserfeld, E., Richards, J. & Cobb, P. (1983). Children's Counting Types: Philosophy, Theory, and Application. New York: Praeger.

Tirosh, D. (1994). Introduction. In D. Tirosh (Ed) Implicit and Explicit Knowledge: An Educational Approach. pp. ix- xxi. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Underwood, G. & Bright, J. (1996). Cognition with and without awareness. In G. Underwood (Ed.) Implicit Cognition, pp. 1-40. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Back to CRME research projects

Back to CRME Home Page