Sharing by Dealing as Problem Solving

In this chapter we examine and classify the range of strategies used by pre-school children to solve a discrete distribution problem where 12 items previously shared between two dolls are to be re-distributed between three dolls. It is curious to note that whilst a significant proportion (57%) of the 74 children studied were able to solve the re-distribution task we set them, only very few (5%) solved it by direct dealing, even though this was a method which, to an adult observer, would clearly work, and moreover was something that most of the children had demonstrated they could do. The most common strategy, adopted by approximately 11% of the children in the study, involved an estimation or guess, at one-third of a discrete pile of objects.