Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge of a Mathematics Problem: Their Measurement and Their Causal Interrelations

Some learning theories see conceptual knowledge as a source of children’s procedural knowledge. Others assume the opposite to be true or posit bi-directional causal relations. Empirical tests of these assumptions are hampered by the lack of knowledge on how to obtain valid measures of these two constructs. We assessed four different measures of both constructs before and after an intervention and modelled the two kinds of knowledge as underlying latent factors in SEM. This enabled us to test the quality of our measures as well as the adequacy of the above-mentioned assumptions. Conceptual knowledge was a source of children’s procedural knowledge, but not vice versa. In contrast to procedural knowledge, conceptual knowledge could be assessed with high internal consistency.