Children's strategies for solving two - and three - dimensional combinatorial problems

Abstract

The study investigated the strategies that 7- to 12-year-old children spontaneously apply to the solution of novel combinatorial problems. The children were individually administered a set of six problems involving the dressing of toy bears in all possible combinations of tops and pants (twodimensional) or tops, pants, and tennis rackets (three-dimensional). Two sets of solution procedures were identified, each comprising a series of five increasingly complex strategies ranging from trial-and-error approaches to sophisticated odometer procedures. Results suggested that experience with the two-dimensional problems enabled children to adopt and subsequently transform their efficient 2-D odometer strategy (where one item is held
constant) into the most sophisticated 3-D odometer strategy, which involved working simultaneously with two constant items. The study highlights the importance of discrete mathematics as a source of problem-solving activities in which children are motivated to create, modify, and extend their own theories.