Relative and absolute thinking in visual estimation processes

This study has two main goals: (1) to investigate the processes involved in visual estimation (part I of the study), and (2) to investigate the processes of judgment in visual estimation situations, which mostly involved proportional reasoning (part II). The study was conducted with 9-year old children in the third grade. Four strategies were expressed by the children in visual estimation situations. Exposure to a unit in the Agam project, designed to enhance visual estimation capabilities resulted in changes in the children's strategies. These changes reflected the processes by which children overcame their limited ability to process visual information. The development of proportional reasoning was investigated through a series of judgment situations. Although, as was expected, most of the children showed an additive behavior, these situations stimulated some children towards qualitative proportional reasoning, where easy/difficult considerations played an important role. © 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.