Explain why "times 1000" from kilogram to gram: Controlled trial on learning to explain in two digital environments with different topic focus
Conference contribution (Article) › Research › Peer reviewed
Publication data
| By | Sofia Bielinski, Susanne Prediger |
| Original language | English |
| Published in | Claudia Cornejo, Patricio Felmer, David M. Gómez, Pablo Dartnell, Paula Araya, Armando Peri, Valeria Randolph (Eds.), Proceedings of the 48th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education: Research Reports (vol. 1) |
| Pages | 115-122 |
| Editor (Publisher) | PME |
| DOI/Link | https://www.igpme.org/publications/current-proceedings/ |
| Publication status | Published – 07.2025 |
Learning to explain procedures (e.g., convert kilogram into gram) has topic-independent discursive components (general readiness to articulate ideas) and topic-specific conceptual components (understanding this procedure). To study if topic-specific components need to be explicitly treated, we conduct a controlled trial with n = 282 fifth graders and compare the effects of two digital teaching-learning environments on topics of mass measurement: The topic-specific environment on the mass unit conversion procedure yielded a medium intra-group effect size (d = 0.73) on explaining why the conversion works. Meanwhile, the environment on applying and explaining estimation
strategies yields a small transfer effect (d = 0.14) on explaining non-treated conversion procedures. Thus, explaining can only slightly be fostered topic-independently.
