The development and validation of two new assessment options for multiplicative thinking

The capacity to recognise, represent, and reason about relationships between different quantities, that is, to think multiplicatively, has long been recognised as critical to success in school mathematics in the middle years and beyond. Building on recent research that found a strong link between multiplicative thinking and algebraic, geometrical, and statistical reasoning, this paper will describe the development and validation of two new assessment options for multiplicative thinking and discuss the significance of this for the teaching and learning of mathematics in the middle years of schooling.