Resumen

Third and fourth grade students’ responses to open-ended questions requiring the modeling of fraction concepts were examined in order to determine the types and prevalence of difficulties students exhibit using pictorial representations in the problem-solving process. When developing pictorial representations, students experienced difficulties with model selection, partitioning, and comparison. Four specific difficulties students experienced in using pictorial representations to solve problems were: not answering the problem goal, incorrect model selection, failure to overcome whole number bias, and struggles with part-whole understanding.