The present study examines mental computational solutions to elementary partitive and quotitive problems given by children aged 6-9 with different levels of arithmetical knowledge. There were four sizes of dividend (4, 8, 12 and 24) and two different divisors (2 and 4). Children's performance improved both with age and schooling since these variables are confounded. Their performance was overall affected by both the size of the dividend and the divisor. Procedures based on double counting and multiplicative facts were more used in quotitive tasks. On the other hand, procedures related to repeated addition and partition of quantities were more frequently used to solve partitive tasks. A small percentage of procedures based on repeated subtraction was observed, suggesting that repeated subtraction cannot be considered as an intuitive procedure associated with division.
partitive division; quotitive division; arithmetic
