Claims

Larger numerical values shift adults' solving strategy from the grouping algorithm to the more economical sequential algorithm

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoretical r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2020 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q2 i? Participants used the grouping algorithm x − (y + z) with small values but switched to the sequential strategy (x − y) − z when larger values made the grouping algorithm too cognitively costly. → Hippolyte Gros 2020

Evidence

Hippolyte Gros 2020

Hippolyte Gros, Jean-Pierre Thibaut, Emmanuel Sander. (2020). Semantic Congruence in Arithmetic: A New Conceptual Model for Word Problem Solving. Educational Psychologist. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2019.1691004

q2 · i? · theoretical · r3

The article reports, citing Thevenot and Oakhill (2005), an experiment using an operand-recognition paradigm in which recognition performance indicated whether numbers were still held in working memory. Strategy choice depended on value size; no effect size is printed.

"participants used the grouping algorithm “x − (y + z)” when the task was not especially demanding due to the problem’s values being small, whereas they used the more economical sequential strategy “(x − y) − z” when the use of larger values implied that the task had higher cognitive costs."

Discussion

Page metadata
Field Value
type claim
id number-size-shifts-solving-strategy
title Larger numerical values shift adults' solving strategy from the grouping algorithm to the more economical sequential algorithm
description Larger numerical values shift adults' solving strategy from the grouping algorithm to the more economical sequential algorithm
status review
evidence_strength weak
newest_evidence 2020
generated by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-22
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — hippolyte-gros-2020

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