Fifteen skilled and 15 unskilled students were selected from 286 Grade 11 and 12 mathematics students as a result of their performances on a mental multiplication test. Introspective reports during mental multiplication tasks yielded 4 methods of solution and 12 calculative strategies. The unskilled students used strategies more suited to written than mental computation, and the skilled students used strategies based upon the number properties suggested by the factors in the task. The skilled students recalled more large products to aid in a mental calculation than the unskilled students did. Mental multiplication performance had a low positive correlation with forward and backward digit span and with multiplication fact recall.
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Hope et al. (1987) studied this question.
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