STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN DEALING WITH FRACTIONS

Differences in student performance when fractions were presented in th e contexts of (a) understanding the meaning of fractions, (b) computat ions with fractions, and (c) solving word problems involving fractions were investigated, A test on fractions involving three parts, namely, a concept test, an operations test, and a problem-solving test was ad ministered to 155 sixth-grade students, Student performance was highes t on the operations test and lowest on the problem-solving test. No di fferences in performance on four operations were observed when fractio ns were presented in computations. Addition problems were the simplest to perform in word problems, and multiplication problems were the mos t difficult, Relationships with previous mathematics achievement and g ender were also analyzed.