Discrete and Continuous Presentation of Quantities in Science and Mathematics Education

Continuous quantities, part of everyday science and mathematics education, are difficult for many students. Difficulties may stem from the interference of salient irrelevant quantities, which are automatically/intuitively processed. We focus on the effect of mode of presentation on students' ability to overcome this interference.We describe several studies: comparison of perimeters, comparison of ratios, and comparison of areas and numbers. In each we used discrete and continuous modes of presentation.The findings clearly demonstrate that changing the mode of presentation affects performance. It is suggested that changing the presentation mode changes the perceptual information, leading to a change in salience level. Such a change could encourage the use of appropriate solution strategies and thus improve the ability to overcome the interference. We discuss the importance of these findings to the understanding of reasoning processes related to quantities and their practical implications in science and mathematics education.