Research Article

Kindergarten children’s combinatorial thinking without and with the use of ICT: The case of combinations

Konstantina Frantzeskaki 1 * , Sonia Kafoussi 1
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1 Department of Sciences of Preschool Education and Educational Design, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, GREECE* Corresponding Author
Contemporary Mathematics and Science Education, 7(1), January 2026, ep26008, https://doi.org/10.30935/conmaths/18151
Submitted: 16 May 2025, Published: 18 March 2026
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ABSTRACT

Although the importance of combinatorial thinking development in mathematics education has been highlighted in various studies, the research concerning kindergarten children is very limited. The present research focuses on the development of combinatorial thinking in kindergarten children aged 4-6 years in two different learning environments, the first one involved only manipulative materials and the second one manipulative materials and ICT. Seventy-two kindergarten children, from a typical public kindergarten school in Greece, participated in a teaching experiment. The comparison of the two environments was based on the number of solutions the children found, their strategies and errors in combination problems with and without repetition, for two age groups (4-5 and 5-6 years old). SPSS software and qualitative content analysis were used for the analysis of the data. Based on the results, no statistically significant difference was found concerning the number of solutions of children in the combinations without repetition, while in the combinations with repetition, the children who worked with manipulative materials performed better. Moreover, the children produced the same strategies and errors in the two environments. The results allow us to discuss practical implications for the design of tasks concerning the development of combinatorial thinking in early childhood.
Keywords: combinatorial thinking, early childhood, ICT, manipulative materials

CITATION (APA)

Frantzeskaki, K., & Kafoussi, S. (2026). Kindergarten children’s combinatorial thinking without and with the use of ICT: The case of combinations. Contemporary Mathematics and Science Education, 7(1), ep26008. https://doi.org/10.30935/conmaths/18151

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