Upper Elementary School Children’s Adaptive Use of Subtraction by Addition: A Choice/No-Choice Replication Study Involving Two Choice Conditions

The current study examined upper elementary school children’s frequent, efficient and adaptive use of direct subtraction ( DS ) and subtraction by addition ( SBA ) when mentally solving multi-digit subtractions, replicating and expanding previous research by Torbeyns et al. (2018). First, children were offered subtractions in two choice conditions in which they had to indicate whether they would use DS or SBA to solve each item. In the...