Abstract
Teaching division in primary school is a challenging task, not least because the distinction between quotative and partitive division is often poorly understood by students. This paper reports initial findings from an ongoing teaching experiment designed to improve students’ understanding of both types of division. The approach integrates direct comparisons of quotative and partitive division to improve students’ ability to explain and apply these concepts. The paper reports on how children who participated in the first cycle of the teaching experiment interpreted material representations of division. Qualitative interviews show that most children could interpret three groups of four cubes as a representation of a division in both ways, although some showed conceptual and linguistic difficulties that will be addressed in the next cycle for further refinement of the approach.