On Children's Heuristics for Solving Simple Additions

Svenson, O., Hedenborg, M‐L. & Lingman, L. 1976. On Children's Heuristics for Solving Simple Additions. Scand. J. educ. Res. 20, 161‐173. Children aged 9‐11 years solved all 105 additions of two addends with a sum smaller than 14. After each of 50 problems (where the addends were unequal and none of which was 1 or 0), verbal reports were given by each child about his way of handling the numerical information to arrive at the solution. The reports indicated that the answers were obtained either by direct retrieval from memory (in about one‐third of the cases) or in reconstructive memory processes, of which almost all (94%) started with the greater addend. Most answers indicating reconstructive processes were classified as one of three major types of heuristics or strategies: 1) one‐step counter strategy (57% of the reconstructive reports), 2) counter strategies with units greater than 1 counted (25%), and 3) tie reference heuristics (12%). An earlier presented cognitive model based on analyses of latencies was improved on the basis of these results.