|
 |
This article describes how data on 11-year-old children’s untaught mental calculation strategies obtained in 1987 – at a time when mental calculation was at a low ebb in schools – raises issues and possible implications for today’s National Numeracy Strategy. The pupils’ responses to mental calculation questions, administered to them in a one-to-one interview situation, were obtained in the course of a national survey of schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The responses have been reanalysed using classifications of mental strategies developed internationally during the 1990s. The reanalysis has been carried out by Derek Foxman, who was director of the 1987 survey at the NFER, and by Meindert Beishuizen, an international expert on mental calculation based at Leiden University in The Netherlands. There were 247 pupils who took both the mental calculation test and also a written test of mathematics in the survey. The scores on the written test were used to distribute these pupils into three bands of attainment, in order to compare the frequency and effectiveness of the strategies invented and used by pupils of different levels of attainment. The reanalysis identified two main categories of mental calculation strategy which were differentially effective but which are not distinguished in the National Numeracy Strategy. |
|
|
|
|
|
| pre conference resources |
 Video clips and presentation slides from our previous pre conferences, are now available online.
Click here to view. |
CERUKplus is the only free database of current education and children’s service research projects in the UK. CERUKplus would like to include practitioner research undertaken as part of masters degree courses or levels 3 + 4 of the Teacher Learning Academy in 2010, and would like to hear from practitioners interested in doing so. We are committed to supporting teachers and lecturers in their research work and building connections between communities of practice. |
| research engaged schools |
 The contribution of research to school improvement has been a matter of considerable debate. It is widely argued that educational practice should be more evidence based, but it is acknowledged that this is not easy to achieve. |
Click here to download free articles available on research engaged school theme  |
|
|
|
