Abstract
Forty 6- to 7-year-old children were tested with single-step, addition/subtraction story problems with and without superfluous numerical information. Half of the children were allowed to find out the solution using objects and half were given pen and paper. Fewer problems with superfluous information than those without such information were solved accurately. Less than half of the problems were attempted with spontaneous modelling with objects and rarely were pen and paper used. In many cases, the use of objects could not facilitate solution of problems with superfluous information thus suggesting that in these cases children's failure to solve the problems could not be explained just by an increase in the cognitive demand for selective attention to, and memory of, the relevant information.
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Fung Lin, N.L. The effect of superfluous information on children's solution of story arithmetic problems. Educ Stud Math 21, 509–520 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00315942
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00315942