Children’s confidence using incorrect strategies on mathematical equivalence problems

Children often struggle to solve mathematical equivalence problems correctly. The change-resistance theory offers an explanation for children’s difficulties and suggests that some incorrect strategies represent the overgeneralization of children’s narrow arithmetic experience. The current research considered children’s metacognitive abilities to test a tacit assumption of the change-resistance theory by providing a novel empirical examination of children’s strategy use and certainty ratings. Children were recruited from U.S. elementary school classrooms serving predominantly White students between the ages of 6 and 9. In Study 1 (n = 52) and Study 2 (n = 147), children were more certain that they were correct when they employed arithmetic-specific incorrect strategies relative to other incorrect strategies. These findings are consistent with the change-resistance theory and have implications for the development of children’s metacognition. •Children varied in their strategy use and certainty on math equivalence problems.•Arithmetic-specific strategies were the most common type of incorrect strategy.•Children’s metacognitive abilities were modest due to overconfidence.•Children’s confidence varied depending on the type of incorrect strategy used.•Results are consistent with the change-resistance theory.