An Investigation On The Operational Strategies Of First-grade Students

From the point of view of the international primary school mathematics curriculum,the emphasis on the cultivation of primary school students’ operational ability is the consensus in the current mathematics education field.However,previous studies have only studied the operational strategies of students in calculation problems or arithmetic application problems.They have not linked the use of strategies in calculation problems with that of arithmetic application problems.They simply summed up the use of operational strategies,but not analyzed the development of students’ arithmetic thinking.Based on the above situation,this study mainly focuses on three problems.Firstly,what are the main types of operational strategies and the characteristics of the first-grade students of primary school in solving addition and multiplication calculation problems and application problems.Secondly,what is their thinking process in specific operations.Thirdly,what level of arithmetic thinking do they present when using different operational strategies.In order to answer the above problems,a class with 41 first-grade students from Y Primary School in Shanghai participated in this research.This study used test methods,interviews,observations,and case analysis methods to conduct operational strategies investigations and interview typical student cases to understand their thinking process and level of arithmetic thinking.The research results were as follows.First of all,first-grade students’ choice of operational strategies showed diversity.In calculation problems,the operational strategies of the first-grade students mainly included twelve strategies,such as retrieval strategy,addition strategy,duiwei strategy and so on.In application problems,there were five kinds of operational strategies,such as addition strategy,multiplication strategy and so on.In general,it appeared three kinds of personalized operational strategies.Secondly,the first-grade students’thinking processes in the use of specific operational strategies were different,and their arithmetic thinking embodied four different levels.Thirdly,the first-grade students’ choice of operational strategies basically conforms to Siegler’s strategy choice model.Based on the results of the research,this study proposed some teaching-related suggestions for mathematics teachers.Finally,the author reflected on this research and proposed research prospects.