Quantity Recognition in Structured Whole Number Representations of Students With Mathematical Difficulties: An Eye-Tracking Study

Quantity recognition in whole number representations is a fundamental skill children need to acquire in their mathematical development. Despite the observed correlation to mathematics achievement, however, the ability to recognize quantities in structured whole number representations has not been studied extensively. In this article, we investigate how students with mathematical difficulties (MD) differ from typically developing (TD) students in quantity recognition in structured whole number representations. We use eye tracking (ET), which can help to identify stu-dents’ quantity recognition strategies. In contrast to methods that include collecting verbal answers and reports, ET avoids an additional verbal-ization step, which may be affected by poor language skills and by low meta-cognitive abilities or memory issues when monitoring, recalling, and explaining one’s thoughts. We present an ET study with 20 students of which ten were found to have MD in initial tests (using qualitative and quantitative diagnostics). We used ET glasses, which allow seeing the students’ view of the scene with an augmented visualization of the gaze point projected onto the scene. The obtained gaze-overlaid videos also include audio data and records of students’ answers and utterances. In our study, we did not find significant differences between the error rates of MD and TD students. Response times, however, were longer for students with MD. The analysis of the ET data brought students’ quantity recognition strategies to light, some of which were not found in previous research. Our analyses revealed differences in the use of these quantity recognition strategies between MD and TD students. Our study illustrates the power of ET for investigating students’ quantity recognition strategies and the potential of ET to support MD students.