Strategies of solving written division algorithms in fifth grade of primary school

The diploma thesis addresses the issue of solving strategies of written division and other connected elements, such as problems, calculation errors and the time of solving presented tasks. The theoretical part outlines key elements, required for pupils’ success at mathematics, problems with which pupils deal at learning mathematics and methods of overcoming these problems. Also presented are calculation strategies, ways of teaching these to pupils and common errors that occur at written calculation. The empirical part brings forth results of a research, which was focused at recognizing: - most frequent problems of pupils at written division, - most widely used strategies of pupils in 5th grade relative to pupils’ success rate at mathematics, - most common errors at these tasks, also relative to success rates and - the correlation of success rate at mathematics to the time, spent in solving written division tasks. The data were collected through an examination, structured observation and discussions with pupils. The research included 16 fifth-grade pupils of Janko Kersnik Brdo primary school and it` s branch school in Blagovica. The research has shown that pupils encounter different kinds of problems at written division tasks, while the most widely used strategy is retrieval of arithmetical facts. The latter is also tightly connected to the majority of errors that pupils make. Furthermore, the research shows that pupils’ success in mathematics rate influences their choice of strategy at solving written division tasks, type and number of errors, and time of solving presented tasks