Abstract:
A broad descriptive study of 103 first graders and 16 longitudinal case studies found
that children's perception and representation of structure generalised across a wide
range of mathematical domains. Children's strategies showing use of pattern and
structure were determined from task-based interviews. A high positive correlation
(0.944) was found between children's performance on forty Pattern and Structure
Assessment (PASA) tasks, and four stages of structural development: pre-structural,
emergent, partial, and structural. Multiplicative structure, including unitising and
partitioning, and 'spatial structuring', were found as critical to development of
pattern and structure.
