Investigation of fifth grade students' conceptual and procedural knowledge in equivalent fractions

In this study, it's aimed to investigate the conceptual and procedural knowledge of 5th grade students in equivalent fractions. The sample of the study consist of 435 fifth grade students studying in two different middle schools in Salihli, which is a district of Manisa, in the academic year of 2021 – 2022. Survey design, one of the descriptive research models, is used since the study is aimed to reveal students' current knowledge on equivalent fractions in terms of conceptual and procedural aspects. An instrument was developed by researcher in which students can demonstrate their conceptual and procedural knowledge about equivalent fractions. This paper – pencil instrument, which consists of 6 open – ended questions, was applied to all 5th graders in schools at once. Students' conceptual and procedural understanding were analyzed by using descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage values). According to the results obtained, the overall performance of students in the test was lower than %50. It was observed that the students showed the highest performance in a question which includes area model, and the lowest performance in a question given in context which includes set model. As a result of the procedural and conceptual analysis of students' responses, it was revealed that students' procedural performance is better than their conceptual performance in questions which are about equivalent fractions. In other words, it was found that the quality of students' knowledge about equivalent fractions is mainly procedural rather than conceptual. Finally, the most common error about equivalent fractions was that students consider multiplying a fraction by 2 and expanding it by 2 as the same procedure while they also think similarly dividing a fraction by 2 and simplifying it by 2 as the same procedure.