Year six fraction understanding: A part of the whole story

A range of assessment tasks was developed for use in one-to-one interviews in December 2005 with 323 Grade 6 students in Victoria. In this paper, we summarise briefly the research literature on fractions, describe the process of development of assessment tasks, share data on student achievement on these tasks, and suggest implications for curriculum and classroom practice. Particular emphasis in the discussion is given to students ’ judgements and strategies in comparing fractions. A particular feature of this report is that one-to-one interview assessment data were collected from a larger number of students than is typically the case in these kinds of studies. Recommendations arising from these data include the importance of teachers understanding and presenting a wider range of sub-constructs of fractions to students in both teaching and assessment than is currently the case, using a greater variety of models, and taking available opportunities to use the interview tasks with their own students