Early Grade Children Procedural and Conceptual Knowledge in Number Pattern Concept at Halaba

摘要

Having an adequate knowledge and skill in mathematics at early grade level is basic for children in their daily life activities and future life successes. Assessing procedural and conceptual knowledge of children can help us to check whether they are getting the required knowledge and skill at the respective grade level because learning mathematics involves both conceptual and procedural knowledge ( JICA, 2012 ). Number pattern is one of the fundamental skill in numeracy that early grade children have to learn and their performance in strategic and effective counting is basic for their future success in arithmetic ( Gersten, Clarke, Haymond, & Jordan, 2011 ). This study examined early grade children procedural and conceptual knowledge level in number pattern, and the association between children’s procedural and conceptual knowledge. The subjects of this study were 24 grade 2 & 3 students in Halaba Kulito primary School at Halaba Zone. The results of this study revealed that early grade children procedural knowledge is average (56.7%) and their conceptual knowledge level is poor (44.4%), and females’ knowledge in both concept and procedure is lower than their male counterpart, 44.2 vs 69.2 & 34.72 vs 55.56. In addition, the finding underlined the significant association between procedural knowledge and conceptual knowledge, and children who score higher in conceptual knowledge items had superior score in procedural knowledge items than the converse. Considering these results as a base line, further studies are required, especially, on quality of early grade mathematics curriculum and its implementation, and the contributing factors of children low performance in learning mathematics, with special focus on female students at early grade levels.