• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.347-366
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• 2015

There are a lot of causes of under-achievement in elementary mathematics, one of which may be lack of previous learning elements. We focus on the understanding of place value. The purpose of this study is to analyze underachievers' levels of understanding of place value concepts and to find the types of place value tasks that they have had special difficulty. For this purpose, an individual test called as "the Six Tasks of Place Value(SToPV)"was applied to ten third grade mathematics underachievers in elementary school. The test is a type of place value concept tests and requires one-on-one interview with some preparation materials. The participants' reactions were analysed according to the framework by Berman(2011). The result of analysis shows that third grade mathematics underachievers tend to have a great difficulty understanding the place value concepts. Also the types of difficult tasks were various from individual to individual. Based on the test results and discussion, we suggested some implications for diagnosing place value concepts of mathematics underachievers.