Unit Transformation Graphs: Modeling Students’ Mathematics in Meeting the Cognitive Demands of Fractions Multiplication Tasks

This article introduces unit transformation graphs (UTGs) as a tool for diagramming the ways students use sequences of mental actions to solve mathematical tasks. We report findings from a study in which we identified patterns in the ways preservice elementary school teachers relied on working memory to coordinate mental actions when operating in fraction multiplication settings. UTGs account for the constraint of working memory in sequencing mental actions to solve mathematical tasks. They also explain the power of units coordinating structures in offloading demands on working memory. At the end of the article, we consider some of the research implications for these findings—specifically, ways that UTGs can lend explanatory and illustrative power to analyses of students’ mathematics.