Mathematics Education Research Journal (2023) 35:427–443

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-021-00398-3

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Natural number bias on evaluations of the effect

of multiplication and division: the role of the type
of numbers

Konstantinos P. Christou1 · Xenia Vamvakoussi2

Received: 20 March 2021 / Revised: 27 August 2021 / Accepted: 14 September 2021 /
Published online: 28 September 2021
© Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, Inc. 2021

Abstract
Over the last years, there is a growing interest in studying students’ difficulties with
rational numbers from a cognitive/developmental perspective, focusing on the role of
prior knowledge in students’ understanding of rational numbers. The present study tests
the effect of the whole or natural number bias (i.e., the tendency to count on natural num-
ber knowledge to interpret information about rational numbers and deal with rational
number tasks), on students’ expectations about the size (i.e., bigger or smaller) and the
type (i.e., natural number or decimal) of the results of multiplication and division. Items
that were congruent and incongruent with students’ assumed expectations were admin-
istered to 91 seventh and eighth graders, asking them to evaluate equalities presenting
multiplication and division between given and missing numbers. The results showed that
besides the already well-documented effect of the size of results (i.e., multiplication makes
bigger and division makes smaller), students tended to think that the numbers involved in
multiplication and division should be of the same type (i.e., natural or non-natural, e.g.,
decimals). Both size and type of the numbers involved in the operations were significant
factors affecting students’ evaluations, with size being stronger than type.

Keywords Natural number bias · Multiplication makes bigger · Operation ·

Misconception

Introduction

Understanding rational numbers is important inside and outside school. For many
reasons, rational numbers are challenging for students, a major source of diffi-
culty being the whole or natural number bias, hereafter NNB (Ni & Zhou, 2005;

* Konstantinos P. Christou
[email protected]
1
Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Western Macedonia, 3rd km. Florinas
Nikis, 53100 Florina, Greece
2
Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Ioannina, University Campus,
45100 Ioannina, Greece

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428 K. P. Christou, X. Vamvakoussi

Vamvakoussi et al., 2013). The NNB refers to students’ tendency to draw on prior
natural number knowledge to interpret new information about non-natural num-
bers, and to deal with related tasks about non-natural numbers. Many systematic
errors, particularly when rational numbers appear in an abstract context, can be
attributed to this bias. In this paper, we investigated aspects of students’ under-
standings of multiplication and division with decimal numbers in an abstract con-
text. We argue that, besides students’ expectations about the effect of multiplica-
tion and division (always “makes bigger,” always “makes smaller,” respectively),
the NNB has an additional effect. More specifically, the present study intends to
provide evidence that students develop expectations also regarding the type (i.e.,
natural or non-natural number) of the operands and the result of multiplication
and division.

Theoretical background

Natural number bias when reasoning with rational numbers

The natural number bias phenomenon has been long known to mathematics educators
and mathematics education researchers (Hart, 1981), mainly as a source of systematic
errors that appear in cases where rational numbers differ from natural numbers. Many
misconceptions underlying systematic errors have been identified in the literature such as
that “longer decimals are larger” (e.g., 0.123 > 0.45, Moloney & Stacey, 1997; Nesher &
Peled, 1986; Resnick et al., 1989); that a fraction’s magnitude always increases when its
denominator, numerator, or both increase (Chinnappan & Forrester, 2014; Meert et al.,
2009; Stafylidou & Vosniadou, 2004; Van Hoof et al., 2013); and that every number has
a unique successor (Merenluoto & Lehtinen, 2004; Vamvakoussi & Vosniadou, 2010).
When it comes to arithmetic operations, the result of addition or multiplication
between two natural numbers (except 0 and 1) is always bigger than the operands.
Similarly, the result of subtraction or division between two natural numbers is
smaller than the minuend and the dividend, respectively. On the contrary, mul-
tiplying or dividing with a number smaller than 1 results in either a smaller or
larger outcome, respectively (e.g., 8 × 0.5 is smaller than 8; 5 ÷ 0.3 is bigger than
5). Dating back to the 1980s, it has been documented that when students solve
word problems, they tend to perform multiplication if they expect a bigger result
and division if they expected a smaller result (Fischbein et al., 1985; Graeber
et al., 1989; Harel et al., 1994; Hart, 1981). More recent studies have provided
supporting evidence for this tendency in the context of algebraic expressions,
using tasks such as, for example, “is 5 × always bigger than 5?” (Vamvakoussi
et al., 2013; Van Hoof et al., 2015); and also in the context of arithmetic equali-
ties with missing numbers (e.g., “is it possible to find a number that could make
this equality hold: 2÷_=9?” (Christou, 2015; Christou et al., 2020)).
NNB-based errors tend to decrease with age and school experience, but
remain present even in educated adults (Obersteiner et al., 2015; Vamvakoussi
et al., 2013). Examining a large sample of 4th to 12th graders, Van Hoof
et al. (2015) showed that while NNB-based errors in fraction and decimal

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Natural number bias on evaluations of the effect of… 429

comparisons practically disappear at the end of secondary school, the NNB

effects with respect to operations and density remain salient.
There are different approaches and explanations given about the origins of the NNB
(Ni & Zhou, 2005; Rips et al., 2008). Nevertheless, there is consensus among scholars
that early informal and formal experiences support the construction of initial, princi-
pled understandings of numbers as natural numbers, rooted in the act of counting (Gel-
man, 2000). According to the perspective that we endorse, these initial understandings
are organized into complex conceptual systems (Smith et al., 2005; Vamvakoussi &
Vosniadou, 2010) that underlie students’ implicit beliefs about numbers. Initial under-
standings of numbers as natural numbers are useful in a variety of everyday situa-
tions and are also validated during the first years of instruction that focuses on natural
number arithmetic. The implicit beliefs underlying these understandings thus acquire
an intuitive character in the sense that they are characterized by immediacy and per-
vasiveness, and are accompanied by a feeling of certainty; they remain strong, even
when a mathematically correct model is available to the individual (Fischbein, 1987).
In other words, natural number knowledge comes to mind first when dealing with
a problem that involves numbers, triggering immediate responses, and continues to
influence students’ reasoning, even after years of instruction on non-natural numbers.
Research on the NNB does not address the whole range of potential understandings of
number that students may exhibit across various contexts. It typically uses symbolic tasks,
where numbers act as abstract entities that take their meaning within a number system
(Kilpatrick et al., 2001), through their relations with other numbers and the operations in
which they participate (e.g., 10 > 8, 10 = 8 + 2, 10 is an even number). This meaning of
numbers, termed “analytic” by Nunes and Bryant (2015), is considerably more challeng-
ing to master, than their referential meaning, where the numbers take their meaning from
the quantities they represent. One important reason is that when numbers refer to quanti-
ties and are represented concretely, students can draw on legitimate actions on quantities
to construct meaning for numbers and their operations (see Behr et al., 1992 for a detailed
account of various meanings of rational numbers). However, these understandings are not
immediately transferred to abstract contexts. Indeed, there is great discrepancy between
students’ performance in symbolic and non-symbolic tasks, with the NNB more likely to
manifest in the former (Ni & Zhou, 2005). Although it is only one aspect of the great vari-
ety of number meanings, the analytic meaning of numbers is important in many contexts,
notably algebra.

Rationale of the present study

In this study, we investigated students’ understandings of multiplications and

division in an abstract context. A main focus of the study was whether or not stu-
dents understand that operations between decimal numbers may result in natural
numbers, and vice versa. This understanding can be viewed as a component of
higher-order number sense (Berch, 2005) pertaining to the analytic meaning of
number (Nunes & Bryant, 2015).

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430 K. P. Christou, X. Vamvakoussi

To the best of our knowledge, no prior study focused on this issue before. There
is evidence indicating that the type of operands (natural/non-natural) may affect
students’ selection of operation and their accuracy in evaluating the results of the
operations when solving word problems (De Corte & Verschaffel, 1996; De Corte
et al., 1988). More direct evidence comes from a study by Switzer (2018) who inter-
viewed fourth to sixth graders asking them which numbers can and cannot act as
addends in expressions such as the following 8 = □ + □, where the sum was always
a natural number. One-fourth of the students rejected non-natural numbers as pos-
sible addends, arguing that non-natural numbers are not relevant when the result is a
natural number. For example, some argued that “we are not talking about decimals”,
“we are not doing fractions”, “because that (the sum) is a positive integer” (p. 47).
We conjectured that some students expect that the operands and the result of
arithmetical operations are of the same type (natural/non-natural). There are two rea-
sons underlying this conjecture, both stemming from a NNB perspective. The first
relates to students’ experiences with arithmetical operations in the context of natu-
ral number arithmetic, in particular when these operations are not represented con-
cretely and pertain to the analytic meaning of number. In the first years of instruc-
tion, such experiences are limited to expressions that include numbers of the same
type, namely natural numbers, as also appear in contemporary mathematics curricu-
lums in many countries (Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Author-
ity [ACARA], 2014; Common Core State Standards Initiative [CCSSI], 2010). In
the context of operations, expressions illustrate natural numbers interacting to pro-
duce a natural number. This is obvious in the case of addition and multiplication,
since the set of natural numbers is closed under both these operations (i.e., adding
or multiplying natural numbers results in natural numbers). It is not the case for sub-
traction and division, which may result in non-natural numbers. However, before
they are formally introduced to positive rational numbers (typically at third or fourth
grade), students have only been taught the Euclidean division that produces a natural
number as quotient, with a possible remainder, also a natural number. Additionally,
before they are introduced to negative rational numbers (typically at sixth or sev-
enth grade), students have only experienced subtraction as a process of subtracting
a smaller natural number from a bigger one, and never the other way around. Thus,
students are over-exposed to expressions presenting numbers of the same type—in
particular, natural numbers—interacting to produce a same-type number. This also
applies to expressions where an operand is missing, and one might also consider
the Euclidean division formula (i.e., dividend = divisor × quotient + remainder, for
example, 19 = 2 × 9 + 1).
Second, conceptualizing the rational numbers set as a unified system of numbers,
where fractions, decimals, and integers are perceived as different representations of
rational numbers, is very challenging for students (Kilpatrick et al., 2001). There is
evidence indicating that many students in various contexts treat rational numbers as
a collection of distinct sets of numbers (i.e., whole numbers, decimals, and fractions)
despite their experiences with the number line and also with converting one represen-
tational form to another, for example, converting decimals to fractions (Vamvakoussi &
Vosniadou, 2010). For instance, middle-grade students were found reluctant to order a
series of numbers of different types; instead, they ordered them separately, or explicitly

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Natural number bias on evaluations of the effect of… 431

stated that ordering different types of numbers is impossible (Markovits & Sowder,
1991). The aforementioned study by Switzer (2018) indicates that some students were
reluctant to “mix together” natural and non-natural numbers in the context of addition.
Vamvakoussi and Vosniadou (2010) found that secondary students who were prepared
to accept that there are infinitely many numbers in an interval still stated that the inter-
mediates must be of the same type as the interval endpoints.
Vamvakoussi and Vosniadou (2010) argued that this problem contributes to stu-
dents’ difficulty to re-organize their initial category of number as natural number to
form a new category under which natural and non-natural numbers are subsumed. In
this long process, students learn to call decimals and fractions “numbers.” However,
they do not deem fractions and decimals a member of the same family as the natural
numbers, and they also neglect the fact that fractions and (rational) decimals are inter-
changeable representations of the same numbers, rather than different kinds of numbers
(Khoury & Zazkis, 1994; O’Connor, 2001). From this perspective, this phenomenon
relates to the NNB, in the sense that new information about non-natural numbers is
interpreted based on students’ initial number concepts and is accommodated allowing
for natural numbers to retain their privileged status. It should be noted that instruction
typically does not facilitate students’ conceptualization of rational numbers as a unified
system of numbers that are invariant under different symbolic representations; we will
return to this issue in the discussion.
Given students’ tendency to group numbers based on the natural/non-natural dis-
tinction as well as based on their representational form (decimals/fractions), and their
early over-exposure to expressions that present numbers of the same type interacting
to produce a same-type result, we reasoned that students may be constrained by the
background assumption that the numbers involved in an operation must be of the same
type. Such a constraint could manifest in various arithmetic and algebraic contexts.
For example, in school textbooks, algebraic expressions, equations, inequalities, and
functions typically contain only natural numbers as coefficients and constants (Greer &
Verschaffel, 2007). Presuming that all components must be of the same type could
affect students’ expectations about the sign of an algebraic expression, the values over
which the variable ranges, etc.

Research questions and predictions

The main hypothesis of this study is that prior knowledge and experience about nat-
ural numbers has a twofold effect on students’ understanding of arithmetical expres-
sions related to operations: First, it shapes their expectations regarding the size of
the result, in relation to the operands (i.e., multiplication makes bigger, division
makes smaller). Second, it affects their assumptions regarding the type of numbers
that are involved in the operation. Specifically, we predicted that students tend to
assume that the operands and the results are of the same type.
We tested this hypothesis for multiplication and division, using different combi-
nations of natural and decimal numbers as operands and results of the operations.
A sample of seventh and eighth graders were presented with a series of arithme-
tic expressions of multiplication and division between one given and one missing

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432 K. P. Christou, X. Vamvakoussi

operand number with the results also given (e.g., 8 ÷ _ = 3.3). Some of the expres-
sions were consistent with the assumed expectations (hereafter, congruent items),
and some were not (hereafter, incongruent items). Students were asked to evaluate
the given equalities (i.e., whether there is a number for which the equality holds).
Question 1 was whether there would be performance differences due to grade.
Previous studies with similar tasks showed that sixth graders performed better than
fifth graders (Christou, 2015) thus, we expected older students to perform better
(Prediction 1).
Question 2 related to the effect of the NNB on students’ evaluations. We pre-
dicted that students would make more mistakes in the incongruent items (where an
intuitive belief about the size or about the type of the results of the operations would
lead to incorrect responses) than in the congruent items, for multiplication as well as
for division (Prediction 2).
Question 3 was which of the two factors, namely the size or the type of the num-
bers involved, would have a stronger effect on students’ accuracy. Since the effect of
number type has not been tested before, no prediction was made.
Question 4 was whether students would respond similarly to multiplication and
division items. Higher accuracy was expected in multiplication than in division in
the size congruent items (Prediction 3) but not necessarily in the size incongruent
items. This is because different studies with secondary school students that used
similar (but not identical) tasks had contradictory findings. In one study, the students
appeared more willing to accept that division “makes bigger” than to accept that
multiplication “makes smaller” (Christou, 2015). However, another study had the
exact opposite finding (Van Hoof et al., 2015). No prediction was made with respect
to type congruency.
Question 5 was whether there would be individual differences in the way that stu-
dents would respond in the different categories of items.

Method

Participants

The participants were 91 students from a public school of Greece: two entire sev-
enth-grade classes (43 students, mean age 12.6) and two entire eighth-grade classes
(48 students, mean age 13.5); 53 of the overall sample were girls.
Greek students are introduced to fractions and decimal numbers at grade 3. By
grade 7, they are supposed to have acquired a good knowledge of operations with
rational numbers and to be able to apply them in different mathematical contexts
such as in equations and inequalities, functions, and problem solving.

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Natural number bias on evaluations of the effect of… 433

Materials

The participants were administered a questionnaire, designed for the purposes of this
study, that included 46 equalities with operations between one given and one miss-
ing operand, with the result also given. The task for students was to decide whether
or not there was a number that would make the given equality valid. Specifically,
the equality was presented in a form such as is 6 × _ = 498 (more examples are pre-
sented in Table 1), and students had to select one of two alternatives (possible/not
possible). The design of the tasks was based on previous research designs applied
in related empirical studies in the field (Christou et al., 2020). Only multiplication
and division were involved in this study, and also only natural or decimal numbers
appeared in the given tasks. The given operand and result were either of the same
type (i.e., both natural numbers or decimals), or of different type (i.e., one natural
number, one decimal). Size and type were crossed, producing four types of items:

1. Size congruent/incongruent tasks: Size congruent tasks were in-line with the
assumed expectations that multiplication makes bigger and division makes
smaller, that is, the result was bigger than the given operand for multiplication
(e.g., 6 × _ = 498) and smaller for division (e.g., 735 ÷ _ = 8). On the contrary,
the result for size incongruent tasks was smaller than the given operand for mul-
tiplication (e.g., 437 × _ = 3) and bigger for division (e.g., 9 ÷ _ = 656).
2. Type congruent/incongruent tasks: Type congruent tasks were in line with the
assumed expectation that the operands and the result of an operation should be
of the same type. Thus, in type congruent tasks, the given operand and the output
were of the same type (e.g., 6.3 × _ = 2.1). On the other hand, in type incongruent
tasks, the given operand and the result were of different types (e.g., 4 ÷ _ = 7.6).

The 40 main tasks were counter-balanced across the abovementioned categories.

Because the correct answer was it is possible across all tasks, we also included 6
buffer tasks that involved multiplication or division with zero and for which the cor-
rect answer was it is not possible. Greek students are explicitly taught from early on
that if the multiplicand or the multiplier is zero, the product is also zero and that if
the dividend is zero, the quotient is zero, whereas zero is not allowed as a divisor.

Table 1  Examples of items per type of operation and congruency

Size congruent/ Size congruent/type Size incongruent/ Size
type congruent incongruent type congruent incongruent/type
incongruent

Multiplication 6 × _ = 498 3 × _ = 3.78 437 × _ = 3 11 × _ = 2.89

2.1 × _ = 5.2 6.1 × _ = 18.3 14.4 × _ = 3.1 8.7 × _ = 2
Division 735 ÷ _ = 8 8 ÷ _ = 3.3 9 ÷ _ = 656 4 ÷ _ = 7.6
7.5 ÷ _ = 4.3 5.4 ÷ _ = 10.8 4.3 ÷_ = 7.5 3.2 ÷ _ = 7
Buffers: 0 × _ = 26, 0 × _ = 5.2; 42 ÷ _ = 0, 8.6 ÷ _ = 0

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434 K. P. Christou, X. Vamvakoussi

The blank was used, instead of the literal symbol x, as a means to avoid remind-
ing to students that the given equalities could be treated as equations and were all
solvable. We also note that we did not include fraction tasks in the questionnaire,
because the number of items would be doubled and it would be tiresome for students
to complete.
The written instruction read as follows: In the following tasks, you should answer
whether you think it is possible to find a value for the missing number that would
provide the given result, or not. They were also told that they should choose the
alternative that best represents their opinion. They were explicitly instructed to con-
sider any kind of number they know, meaning any type of number they have come
across in mathematics, independently of its form. Additionally, it was stressed that
they do not have to find the missing number. Typical missing number tasks (i.e.,
asking for the missing number) are familiar to students because they appear in text-
books throughout primary school. However, we cannot exclude the possibility of a
teacher having used tasks like the ones we used in the classroom.

Procedure

The students completed the tests in their classroom during their mathematics course
in the presence of their teacher and one researcher. Students understood the tasks,
and no clarification question was asked. One teaching hour (45 min) was available
for the whole process, including distributing the test papers, instructions, time for
students to take a look at the tasks, and prompting them to ask clarification ques-
tions. This left students with about 30–35 min to complete the questionnaire. The
available time was not exhausted by any of the students.

Results

We first note that the buffer tasks were not included in any of the analyses presented
in the following. Participants’ responses were scored as correct or incorrect (0/1).
Raw data were included in the analyses; no data manipulation was made. Cronbach’s
alpha test measured the reliability of the questionnaire, which was satisfactory
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.871).
Considering question 1, univariate analysis of variance was used with students’
mean accuracy across all tasks as depended variable, and grade as factor. The results
showed that, against Prediction 1, the eighth graders did not perform better than the
seventh graders (M = .48, SE = .03 vs M = .49, SD = .02) [F(1, 89) = .103, p = .749,
­np2 = 0.001]; thus, the sample was unified for the analyses that follow.
To address question 2 and question 4, generalized estimating equations (GEEs)
with mean accuracy as dependent variable were used to test for main effects of
size and type congruency as well as operation type, and possible interactions
between them—Bonferroni correction was applied. This analysis requires a data
set with multiple measurements per subject; therefore, GEE was used because
it can test repeated (and therefore probably correlated) measures within subjects

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Natural number bias on evaluations of the effect of… 435

(Nussbaum, 2015). Further, the interaction between size and type congruency,
as well as pairwise comparisons and odds ratio comparisons, presented in more
detail in the following, were used to address question 3. Figure 1 presents mean
accuracy by operation (multiplication/division), by size congruency (congruent/
incongruent), and by type congruency (congruent/incongruent), with error bars
showing the 95% confidence interval.
A significant main effect of size congruency χ2(1, N = 3640) = 93.400,
p < 0.001, as well as of type congruency χ2(1, N = 3640) = 25.474, p < 0.001 was
found, which addresses question 2, and is in-line with Prediction 2 of the study.
Specifically, mean accuracy was significantly higher on size congruent (65%)
than on size incongruent items (32%), and it was also higher on type congruent
(53%) than on type incongruent items (44%). The odds ratios for accuracy for
size congruent vs size incongruent items and type congruent vs type incongru-
ent items gave an indication of the relative strength of the bias on the size and
the type of the results, and thus address question 3. The odds ratio showed that
the strength of size congruency (OR = 3.95, 95% CI [2.19, 7.1]) was larger than
that of type congruency (OR = 1.44, 95% CI [0.82, 2.5]). Specifically, estimated
odds ratios suggested that the odds of answering a size congruent task correctly
were about 4 times the odds of answering a size incongruent item correctly, and
the odds of answering a type congruent item correctly was 1.5 times the odds of
answering a type incongruent item correctly.
Additionally, there was a significant main effect of size congruency for multi-
plication and for division χ2(3, N = 3640) = 136.340, p < .001. Pairwise com-
parisons among the estimated marginal means showed significantly higher accu-
racy on size congruent than on size incongruent items, evidencing an effect of

Fig. 1  Mean accuracy by operation, by size congruency, and by type congruency

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436 K. P. Christou, X. Vamvakoussi

number size for multiplication (67% vs. 31%, p < .001) as well as for division (62%
vs. 33%, p < .001).
There was also a significant main effect of type congruency for both operations
χ2(3, N = 3640) = 28.582, p < .001. Again, pairwise comparisons among the esti-
mated marginal means showed higher accuracy on type congruent than on type
incongruent items, evidencing an effect of number type for multiplication (52% vs.
46%, p < .05) as well as for division (53% vs. 42%, p < .001).
Finally, considering research question 4, students showed similar accuracies in
multiplication (49%) and in division (47%) with no main effect for operation χ2(1,
N = 3640) = .525, p = .469.

Individual profiles

The above analyses are based on mean accuracy, and as such, they do not provide
information about the individual student’s treatment of the tasks. To identify differ-
ent groups (clusters) in terms of within-group similarities (question 5), a two-step
cluster analysis was applied on mean accuracy in (a) multiplication items and (b)
division items—raw data were included in the analyses, and no data manipulation
was made.
For multiplication, Schwarz’s Bayesian criterion indicated an optimal solution of
two clusters. The silhouette coefficient of this solution was 0.6, which is character-
ized as reasonable, because it is higher than 0.5 in the estimate of cluster cohesion
and separation scale that ranges from − 1 to 1 (Kaufman & Rousseeuw, 1990). For
the latter, Schwarz’s Bayesian criterion indicated that a solution with three clusters
described the data best. The silhouette coefficient was 0.4, which is characterized as
fair. Table 2 presents the mean scores and standard deviations of mean accuracy per
task category, by cluster, for both operations.
For the multiplication items, the members of the first cluster (Clust. M1) can be
characterized as the high performers in all four categories of items (at least 0.86
mean accuracy in each category). The second cluster (Clust. M2) included the stu-
dents who could be characterized as the lower-performing students, with much
lower accuracy across all categories of items (lower than 0.18). Students in both
clusters performed higher in the size congruent tasks than in the size incongruent
tasks, independently of type congruency. These profiles show again that the students
were affected more by size congruency, than type congruency with respect to the
multiplication items.
Regarding the division items, the first cluster (Clust. D1) comprised, similarly
to Clust. M1, students with high accuracy in all division tasks (at least 0.89 mean
score in all categories). The second cluster (Clust. D2) comprised students with high
accuracy in the size congruent items (mean accuracy higher than 0.66) and low in
size incongruent items (mean accuracy lower than 0.17 in both size incongruent task
categories). Interestingly, the third cluster (Clust. D3) comprised students who per-
formed higher in the type congruent items (mean accuracy higher than 0.41 in both
type congruent categories) than in the type incongruent items (mean accuracy lower
than 0.28 in both type incongruent categories). This indicates that, also in division

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Natural number bias on evaluations of the effect of… 437

Table 2  Mean scores and St. deviations of accuracy in each cluster by item category and operation
Multiplication Division
Clust. M1 Clust. M2 Clust. D1 Clust. D2 Clust. D3

Size congruent/type congruent 0.90 (0.13) 0.68 (0.23) 0.89 (0.15) 0.86 (0.12) 0.49 (0.17)
Size congruent/type incongruent 0.88 (0.21) 0.55 (0.29) 0.95 (0.13) 0.66 (0.19) 0.28 (0.21)
Size incongruent/type congruent 0.86 (0.19) 0.18 (0.18) 0.89 (0.13) 0.17 (0.24) 0.41 (0.29)
Size incongruent/type incongruent 0.89 (0.17) 0.17 (0.23) 0.93 (0.16) 0.12 (0.16) 0.29 (0.31)
Cluster size: N (% of variance) 18 (19.8) 73 (80.2) 11 (12.1) 35 (38.5) 45 (49.5)

items, number size congruency played a definitive role in most students’ evalua-
tions. However, in the case of division, there were also some students who appear to
have systematically based their responses on the number type.
The cluster membership as identified in the two-step cluster analysis presented
above was a significant factor for students’ total performance in multiplication items
F(1, 85) = 84.306, p < .001, np2 = .498 as well as in division items F(1, 85) = 23.608,
p < .001, np2 = .357.

Discussion

In this study, we tested for a twofold effect of the NNB on secondary students’
expectations about multiplication and division. First, we hypothesized that students
would expect that multiplication always makes bigger whereas division always
makes smaller. Second, we hypothesized that students would expect that the oper-
ands and the result of multiplication or division are of the same type (natural/non-
natural). To the best of our knowledge, this hypothesis has never been tested before
and may extend the range of effects of the natural number bias phenomenon.
The results of the study supported our hypotheses showing that the size as well as
the type of numbers involved in the operations affected students’ evaluations of the
validity of the given equalities. More specifically, students’ accuracy in the size con-
gruent tasks was higher than in the size incongruent tasks, for multiplication as well
as for division. These results are in line with prior research, strengthening previous
findings (Christou, 2015; Fischbein et al., 1985; Vamvakoussi et al., 2013; Van Hoof
et al., 2015).
Additionally, students’ accuracy in evaluating the type congruent items was
higher than in the type incongruent items, for size congruent items in multiplication
and division, and for size incongruent tasks in division, but not for size incongru-
ent tasks in multiplication, where students’ performance was very low. These results
provide empirical evidence that besides the size of the results, the type of operands
also affects students’ responses. It also appears that students focused more on the
size of the result than on the type of the numbers when evaluating the given equali-
ties. Cluster analysis further strengthened these results and additionally showed that

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438 K. P. Christou, X. Vamvakoussi

in division, there were also students who focused on the type of the numbers in a
systematic way.
Contrary to Prediction 3, students’ accuracy did not differ significantly in multi-
plication compared to division in the different categories of tasks. Additionally, con-
trary to Prediction 1, there was no significant difference between eighth and seventh
graders’ performance, indicating that the NNB still affects students’ reasoning at the
end of high school (Obersteiner et al., 2015; Vamvakoussi et al., 2013).
The results of the current study provide some empirical evidence that besides the
well-known effect of NNB on students’ expectations about the size of the results
of multiplication and division, there are also students’ expectations considering the
type (i.e., natural or non-natural number) of the operands and the result of multipli-
cation and division which are biased in certain ways. Knowledge of the effects of
operations on numbers is considered a fundamental feature of number sense (Berch,
2005), pertaining to the analytic meaning of numbers (Nunes & Bryant, 2015). In
the same vein, understanding that operations between numbers of a certain type may
result in numbers of a different type is important in developing a good understand-
ing of the properties of numbers and their operations. This knowledge is essential
for succeeding in many different mathematical areas such as in estimating, solving,
and evaluating the results of equations, understanding functions, etc.

Limitations and further research

A main limitation of the study is that the sample size is small and the participants
came from only one school; thus, the findings should be interpreted with caution.
Another limitation of this study is that it is based on students’ responses to a written
questionnaire and there are no data illustrating students’ reasoning when or imme-
diately after solving the tasks. There are several possible routes that students could
have taken, and we discuss them systematically in the following.
First, students could respond to these questions based on their knowledge about how
simple equations are solved, circumventing strategies such as trying out numbers or
relying on general rules of operations (e.g., multiplication makes bigger), that might
lead them to NNB errors. This was taken into consideration in the design of the tasks,
by using blanks to represent the missing numbers, instead of the literal symbol x which
might steer students towards equation solving, and also, in the instructions, by stress-
ing that the missing number is not to be specified, as well as by providing number
combinations in which computing the missing number is not easy. Based on previous
experience with secondary students solving similar tasks with variables in individual
interviews, we are fairly confident that they do not treat them as tasks on equation solv-
ability; they rather try to respond by trying different numbers (Dimitrakopoulou &
Christou, 2018; Van Hoof et al., 2015). In the literature, evoking knowledge on equa-
tion solvability has been attributed to experts (Obersteiner et al., 2015). Still, the pos-
sibility of students using this strategy cannot be excluded.
Another possibility that cannot be excluded is that some students did try to find the
missing number by solving the given equations. This would mean that they recognized
the given equalities as equations, which, as we mentioned above, we have reasons to

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Natural number bias on evaluations of the effect of… 439

doubt. In addition, we did not find any indication on the questionnaires that students
made any calculations. Assuming that there were some students who either solved the
equations, or evoked knowledge on equation solvability, an interesting question arises
to be further investigated via qualitative methods. Specifically, only two students in our
sample managed to answer all tasks correctly. For the great majority of students, even
if some students used any of these two strategies, they did not seem to have used it sys-
tematically. This implies that although some students may have recognized that knowl-
edge on equations was relevant to the tasks at hand, they failed to use it in all items.
Another concern could be that some students might have been puzzled by the fact
that the answer “it is possible” appears far more often than the answer “it is not pos-
sible” and might have changed their answers during or after the completion of the ques-
tionnaire to balance the set of responses. However, we did not find such indications
(i.e., changes in the initial answer, or sudden increases of “it is possible” responses
from some point on) in the test papers. In our experience with students dealing with
similarly designed sets of tasks, we have never observed any indication of this strategic
approach (Christou, 2015; Christou et al., 2020). More importantly, had students imple-
mented such a strategy, we would have not found the expected patterns of responses, at
least with respect to size, which is widely documented in the literature.
Future studies with individual interviews are currently designed that could corrobo-
rate the findings of this study. Additionally, complementing accuracy data with reac-
tion time data might provide further empirical evidence of natural number reasoning
in these tasks and similar tasks, and may clarify some of the issues reported above (see
also Gillard et al., 2009; Obersteiner et al., 2015). A plausible prediction would then be
that accurate responses to congruent items would be faster than to incongruent items.
So far, this methodology has been used only with size congruent/incongruent items,
and the results were in-line with this prediction (Meert et al., 2009; Obersteiner et al.,
2015; Stafylidou & Vosniadou, 2004; Vamvakoussi et al., 2013; Van Hoof et al., 2013,
2015). The same methodology could also be used with type congruent/incongruent
items.
Additionally, the effect of type of operands on students’ evaluations could be inves-
tigated for different combinations of other types of non-natural numbers, notably
fractions. Based on the same rationale as the one of this study, we would predict that
students would tend to expect that operations between fractions could not result to deci-
mals and vice versa.

Educational implications

Addressing the NNB in instruction is a complex endeavor that requires remedial as

well as anticipation approaches. Here, we only refer to few implications that are rel-
evant to this study, conducted through the particular theoretical lenses.
An important issue is that the majority of students are typically not aware of
their background assumptions about numbers and operations (Fischbein, 1987;
Vamvakoussi & Vosniadou, 2010). It is well documented that merely exposing
students to situations that are not consistent with their background assumptions is
not effective (Merenluoto & Lehtinen, 2004). For example, an intervention based

13
440 K. P. Christou, X. Vamvakoussi

on a refutational text was successful enough to reduce the NNB errors but did not
manage to fully address the effects of NNB (Christou & Prokopou, 2020). Hinting
towards the correct answer (e.g., advising students to think of any type of num-
ber they know, as we did in this study) is also not enough. Indeed, raising stu-
dents’ awareness requires substantial support for them to externalize their beliefs,
compare them with their peers’, acknowledge changes in their thinking, and, in a
more general fashion, to reflect on their reasoning (for a similar suggestion, albeit
from a different perspective, see Tzur, 2019). Tasks inconsistent with students’
assumed beliefs, such as the incongruent items in this study, could be used in a
systematic and structured way to support students to engage in reflection.
However, assuming that students’ background assumptions about numbers
have an intuitive character, in terms of Fischbein (1987) account of intuitions,
such interventions should not be expected to address the NNB-based errors that
may re-surface at another moment or in another context. A possible teaching
approach is to alert students to this possibility and support them to adopt or invent
inhibition strategies (Christou, 2015; Dimitrakopoulou & Christou, 2018). One
such inhibition strategy is to always think of at least one negative or one positive
number smaller than 1 in algebraic contexts (e.g., when drawing function graphs,
or working with absolute values and square roots).
Instruction plays of course an important role in the development and sustainabil-
ity of the NNB (Vamvakoussi et al., 2018). Indeed, instruction typically does not
support students to reorganize their conceptualization of numbers and operations,
grounded in natural numbers; and to develop a unified view of the set of rational
numbers (Kilpatrick et al., 2001; Moss, 2005; Vamvakoussi & Vosniadou, 2010).
More attention should be paid to the similarities between natural and non-natural
numbers that make them members of the same family, such as that they are meas-
ures of quantity (e.g., length on the numbers line); they can be compared in terms
of magnitude; and they are subject to the same operations, despite procedural dif-
ferences. The number line can also be used to support students understand that dif-
ferent representations may actually refer to the same number (i.e., the same point
on the number line). The content pertaining to these ideas is already included in
current curricula. Unfortunately, it is not exploited adequately by textbooks and in
the classroom. Consider, for example, that fractions and decimals are typically pre-
sented separately, and conversion from one form to another is treated mainly as a
procedure, with little attention to the underlying idea that different representations
correspond to the same mathematical object.
Further, students are typically exposed to a very limited range of examples of nat-
ural numbers, decimals, and fractions “mixing together,” for example, in the context
of algebra (Greer & Verschaffel, 2007). In fact, an analysis of the Greek mathemati-
cal textbooks for junior high school showed that the great majority of coefficients
in the chapters on equations, inequalities, and functions were natural numbers, and
only few non-natural number as the solution of the worked-out examples or the tasks
for students (Dimitrakopoulou & Christou, 2018).
Anticipating the NNB problem in the context of multiplication and division
entails reconsidering the way these operations are introduced in the first years of
instruction. Indeed, multiplication is typically introduced as repeated addition, an

13
Natural number bias on evaluations of the effect of… 441

inadequate model that cannot be used meaningfully in the context of rational num-
bers, and underlies the idea that multiplication “makes bigger” (Fischbein et al.,
1985). On the other hand, division as partition is prevalent in the early years of
instruction, while division as quotition is downplayed (Roche & Clarke, 2013). It
has been suggested that introducing multiplication as a scalar factor, and division
in terms of both quotition and partition could be beneficiary for students in the long
run (Prediger, 2008). Taking a different perspective on the same problem, Izsák and
Beckmann (2018) have suggested that the deep connections between measurement
and multiplication should be exploited in instruction. Introducing multiplication and
division with a view to anticipate later expansions of meaning is worth exploring.
Plausible alternatives need, of course, to be empirically validated.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Tina E. Dimitriadis and Maria Mamfreda for their help in
the data collection.

Author contribution All authors contributed equally.

Availability of data and material Data and material are available.

Declarations

Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests.

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