Developing and Validating a Scriptwriting Task in the Context of Student Difficulties with Fraction Multiplication and Division

Teaching simulations such as scriptwriting tasks offer a novel way to support pre-service teachers in gaining diagnostic competencies and in guiding students to work through difficulties. We first report on the theory-driven development of a scriptwriting task, specifically the theoretically-founded language- and accompanying content-related challenges concerning fraction multiplication and division that were embedded in the task. In a validation study, nine experts in mathematics education and/or academic language development participated in an expert rating of the scriptwriting task, assessing the intended embedded student difficulties. As a further means of examining content validity, a second study was conducted in which 32 completed dialogues from the scriptwriting tasks from pre-service primary mathematics teachers were compared to the results of the expert rating. Findings of the validation study highlighted that the experts recognised the intended embedded content. Correspondingly, the results of the second study revealed that the pre-service teachers also identified the intended content.