Choosing mental, written, or calculator procedures is important for children to learn. Children should be encouraged to be flexible and consider alternatives when doing mental calculation. Developing mental skills, symbols and rules, and numbers in context are each considered. (MNS)

A set of three problem-solving programs designed as drills that give practice in mental arithmetic are reviewed. The programs are viewed to have several weaknesses in style, but are noted as worthy of consideration for purchase. The material is designed to motivate students to practice all four basic operations. (MP)

Discusses mental computation and how and when it should be taught. Describes seven properties of mental algorithms. (YP)

Mathematics curriculum documents highlight the need for students to be able to choose from a repertoire of computational tools and strategies, but little direction is given as to how children choose which form of computation to use in any given situation. In this article, the author reports on the classroom implications of research designed to…

This paper describes an empirical evaluation of a Bayesian procedure for equating scores on test forms taken by small numbers of examinees, using collateral information from the equating of other test forms. In this procedure, a separate Bayesian estimate is derived for the equated score at each raw-score level, making it unnecessary to specify a…

In order to estimate the likely effects on item difficulty when a calculator becomes available on the quantitative section of the Graduate Record Examinations® (GRE®-Q), 168 items (in six 28-item forms) were administered either with or without access to an on-screen four-function calculator. The forms were administered as a special research…

The method of maximum-likelihood is typically applied to item response theory (IRT) models when the ability parameter is estimated while conditioning on the true item parameters. In practice, the item parameters are unknown and need to be estimated first from a calibration sample. Lewis (1985) and Zhang and Lu (2007) proposed the expected response…

Past estimates of the effect of family income on child development have often been plagued by endogeneity and measurement error. In this paper, we use two simulated instrumental variables strategies to estimate the causal effect of income on children's math and reading achievement. Our identification derives from the large, non-linear changes in…

This review examined a study designed to evaluate whether playing number board games improved numeracy skills of low-income preschoolers. The study included 136 pre-school children from 10 urban Head Start centers: 72 children were randomly selected to play a number board game with a trained experimenter; the remaining 64 children played a…

The major purposes of this study were to assess the efficacy of tutoring to remediate 3rd-grade computational deficits and to explore whether remediation is differentially efficacious depending on whether students experience mathematics difficulty alone or concomitantly with reading difficulty. At 2 sites, 127 students were stratified on…

Introduction: For decades birth order and gender differences have attracted research attention. Method: Birth order, family size and gender, and the relationship with arithmetic achievement is studied among 1152 elementary school children (540 girls, 612 boys) in Flanders. Children were matched on socioeconomic status of the parents and…

An Excel add-in--XSEOS--that implements several excess Gibbs free energy models and equations of state has been developed for educational use. Several traditional and modern thermodynamic models are available in the package with a user-friendly interface. XSEOS has open code, is freely available, and should be useful for instructors and students…

A simplified model of an industrially relevant fluid-particle flow system is analyzed using linear stability theory. Instabilities of the uniform state of a fluidized bed are investigated in response to small flow perturbations. Students are expected to perform each step of the computational analysis, and physical insight into key mechanistic…

Semiconductor quantum dots are at the forefront of materials science chemistry with applications in biological imaging and photovoltaic technologies. We have developed a simple laboratory experiment to measure the quantum-dot size from fluorescence spectra. A major roadblock of quantum-dot based exercises is the particle synthesis and handling;…

Background: Assessing actual consumption of school cafeteria meals presents challenges, given recall problems of children, the cost of direct observation, and the time constraints in the school cafeteria setting. This study assesses the use of digital photography as a technique to measure what elementary-aged students select and actually consume…