Divide and conquer: Relations among arithmetic operations and emerging knowledge of fraction notation for Chinese students in Grade 4

How do whole number arithmetic skills support students' understanding of fraction magnitude during the emerging stages of fraction learning? Chinese students in Grade 4 (N = 1038; Mage = 9.9 years; 55.6% boys) completed assessments of whole number arithmetic skills (i.e., addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), fraction mapping (i.e., connecting visual fraction representations to fraction notations), and fraction comparison (i.e., comparing magnitudes of fraction symbols). We found that division skills uniquely differentiated students who had a basic understanding of fraction notation (mappers) from students with no understanding of fraction notation (non-mappers). Furthermore, we found that division mediated the relations between all three other arithmetic operations (i.e., addition, subtraction, and multiplication) and fraction mapping performance for the mappers. For fraction comparison, there was evidence of the whole number bias for the majority of students. The current results highlight the importance of the mastery of division skills and its dominance in predicting individual differences in fraction mapping for Chinese students in Grade 4.