Proceedings of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education · Volume 1
Daniel Sommerhoff
Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN)
⬇ Download PDFMental addition and subtraction are key learning goals in primary education, yet they remain challenging for learners. Unfortunately, there is limited quantitative evidence on characteristics that influence the difficulty of these tasks (DGICs). Using a dataset with 1,085,842 task performances from 7,307 students across 3,434 tasks, this study quantitatively explores more than 10 DGICs. Results (i) show that all proposed DGICs significantly predict item difficulty, (ii) quantify main and interaction effects, and (iii) underline that the DGICs explain over 50% of the variance in student performance, even without considering students’ backgrounds or solution strategies. Overall, this study provides important insights into the difficulty of mental addition and subtraction tasks, informing task design and guiding future research in mathematics education.
arithmeticstask designdifficulty-generating item characteristicsprimary school