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Manipulatives such as toy animals and blocks are often used in early years classrooms as resources to help teach mathematical concepts to children. However, there is debate in research as to which kinds of manipulatives are best to facilitate learning. Different manipulatives can be thought of as existing on a concrete-abstract continuum, with concreteness defined as the amount of extraneous information a representation communicates to the learner. Some researchers argue that the extraneous concrete features associated with manipulatives such as toy animals (e.g., shape, colour, prior knowledge) distract children and hinder their learning and transfer. Conversely, others suggest certain combinations of concrete manipulative features may be beneficial in capturing children’s attention and facilitating engagement. Often research investigating manipulative features focusses on the performance of children on mathematical tasks, without considering the kinds of behaviours and strategies that the different types of manipulatives used in these tasks might afford. Therefore, this study aims to consider the kinds of behaviours and strategies different kinds of manipulatives encourage, as well as the performance outcomes they facilitate. The features we have focussed on for this study are whether the set of manipulatives is concrete (i.e., high in extraneous features e.g., colour, texture, prior knowledge) or abstract (i.e., has fewer extraneous features), and whether the set is homogeneous (i.e., all manipulatives in a set are identical) or heterogeneous (i.e., manipulatives in a set are dissimilar). |
