The Natural Number Bias Hampers Secondary School Students in Different Ways: A Conceptual Replication of Van Hoof et al. (2013)

What is it about?

This study looked into the issue of 'natural number bias' and how it might cause problems for middle school students. In simpler terms, natural number bias is when students wrongly apply their understanding of whole numbers to fractions. We repeated an experiment done by Van Hoof and team in 2013, but with students from Mexico. In this experiment, we asked first and third grade students to complete a computer task that required them to compare fractions. Some of these fractions agreed with the natural number bias, while others did not. We noticed that students found it harder to answer questions that didn't align with the natural number bias - they got fewer of these right, and also took more time over them. Interestingly, they didn't take extra time on incorrect answers, which suggests they weren't aware of their mistakes. These findings are similar to those of the 2013 study and lend more weight to the 'Dual-process theory'. This theory suggests that students use two different thought processes when handling numbers - one for whole numbers and another for fractions. Our study shows the value of repeating experiments to improve our understanding of natural number bias.

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