RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMPUTATIONAL PERFORMANCE AND NUMBER SENSE AMONG6TH-GRADE AND 8TH-GRADE STUDENTS IN TAIWAN

This research provides information on the number sense of Taiwanese st udents in Grades 6 and 8. Data were collected with separate tests on w ritten computation and number sense. Seventeen students were interview ed to learn more about their knowledge of number sense. Taiwanese stud ents' overall performance on number sense was lower than their perform ance on written computation. Student performance on questions requirin g written computation was significantly better than on similar questio ns relying on number sense. There was little evidence that identifiabl e components of number sense, such as use of benchmarks, were naturall y used by Taiwanese students in their decision making. This research s upports the need to look beyond correct answers when computational tes t results are reported.