Design-Based Research in Practice: A Technology-Based Classroom Experiment that Explores How Students Use Virtual Manipulatives to Order Groups of Fractions

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a mixed-methods classroom experiment that examines how students use interactive virtual representations to order groups of fractions. The results of the experiment suggest that students can learn to construct virtual representations of fractions with minimal instruction, but their ability to construct virtual representations of fractions is not always aligned with their ability to correctly order groups of fractions represented symbolically.