Since the first hand held, pocket calculator was introduced in the 1970’s by Hewett and Packard (History

of the calculator: the microchip age and virtual age, 2014), these astute little electronic devices have
become an increasingly conventional part of our everyday life. But, as you will read from here on, the
advancement of mathematical technology may prove to be a double-edged sword. With students, ex
students and scholars alike expressing concern that an overdependence on calculators may inhibit
student’s ability for mental computation and even for basic number sense. As with anything, of course,
there is contention, and here both sides of the argument will be explored with the voices of both
scholars, educators, parents and ex-students taking the floor.

According to Maloney, Beilock & Fiske (2015) “Those individuals who experience fear and apprehension
when faced with the prospect of doing math are said to have ‘math anxiety’… many people also
experience anxiety when engaging in mundane everyday math tasks like calculating a tip at a restaurant
or deciding whether or not they received the proper change at the grocery store.”. I myself have
experienced the aforementioned ‘math anxiety’, stemming from being reprimanded by my teachers for
my less than average math skills. Going on into high school I enrolled in Math A and got a very decent
grade; however, it is necessary to note that calculators where almost always allowed here, from
classwork to exams, providing students with the ever-present option of calculating even the simplest of
equations. I can follow a complicated formula, as long as I have been shown what buttons to press on
my calculator; but I never fully understood what I was calculating, and never learned adequate math
sense enough to do modest math sums in my head. Although the free use of calculators relieved my
math anxiety and allowed me to achieve in my classes, I now believe it was for the worse and am now
anxious for my ability to teach numeracy to school children as a result. My younger brother is 12, and as
I watch him go into high school I can see him developing the same reliance on calculators as I fostered as
I went through schooling. As I help him with his maths homework, I note him reaching for the calculator
to help him do a simple times-table. I do not doubt that this behaviour is common amongst children his
age, and it suggests to me, not only that calculator reliance in school children is exacerbating, but
perhaps that teacher’s ability to teach numeracy without a calculator is deteriorating also. I believe that
if this trend continues in schools, our society as a whole will eventually become altogether, innumerate.
For this reason, I think it is important for the use of calculators, in primary school settings especially,
needs to be generally limited all round and banned where prudent.

While perusing the literature around this subject, one finds significant conjecture about if and how the
education system should be reformed to encourage number sense and mental computation, suppress
the development of calculator dependency. Westwood (2014, p. 51) seems to strongly lean towards the
opinion that students access to calculators has facilitated, rather than hindered, their mathematical
skills especially in the case of high-achieving students and low students of low ability stating that “The
calculator has been of particular value for students of high ability, enabling them to tackle complex
problems or themes, and also for students of low ability, allowing them to bypass some of their
computational weaknesses.” (Westwood, 2014, p. 51). Westwood (2014, p. 51) also grants there is a
danger with calculator use, where “…children may use a calculator without necessarily understanding
the operation they have performed.” (Westwood, 2014, p. 51). Consequently, Westwood’s suggestion
for teachers is that, for young children, calculator use should only follow or accompany more tangible
work in order to allow children to build conceptual understanding of the theory (Westwood, 2014, p.
51). However, in Westwood’s earlier work Numeracy and Learning Difficulties: Approaches to Teaching
and Assessment, they raise the rather irrefutable point that “… time spent on mastering arithmetic
procedures and algorithms is largely wasted for students who cannot seem to retain the steps involved
in carrying out particular procedures, no matter how much practice they have. Using a calculator as a
permanent alternative is totally defensible in such cases” (Westwood, 2000, p. 60). Martinovic, Freiman,
& Zekeriya (2013, p. 225) also stand in defence of calculator use in schools when they state that, in the
classroom, calculators can be “…Tools for outsourcing the processing power…, which allows users to
perform calculations that may be complicated, lengthy, or beyond their current level of skill.”.

On the other hand, as Parslow (2010) finds, after many people move on from high school and into higher
education, when faced with a task that requires them to calculate without the use of electronics, they
are unable to meet up to the expected standards and sometimes even feel that they have been
‘cheated’ (Parslow, 2010). As Parslow (2010) puts it “The ubiquitous electronic calculator has now
eliminated the need to understand and remember how to perform mathematical procedures.”
Furthermore, in a 2006 study on university biochemistry undergraduate students understanding of pH
and basic mathematical skills, Watters & Watters (2006) found that “Nearly all students demonstrated
only a rudimentary understanding of mathematics and depended on their calculators to generate
numbers that had no real meaning to them.”. This supports Westwood’s (2014, p. 51) previous
comment that students may perform operations on their calculators without necessarily understanding
the operation they just performed. Moreover, what Watters & Watters (2006) study shows us is that
this unproductive behaviour continues on into students’ lives after school, into higher education and
arguably into the workforce. Additionally, Olson & Clough (2001) note another problem with calculator
use in the classroom, that in many cases it eliminates the evidence of the students thinking process,
which is often significant for teachers when diagnosing students work and their understanding of
concepts. The procedures students use to solve a problem on a calculator are not available for teachers
which may lead to teachers falsely assuming that student have an understanding of the problem or
concept because they correctly solved the problem (Olson & Clough, 2001).

Four people were interviewed on their opinions on heavy calculator use in schools, and their personal
experiences with calculator dependency. Interviewee A is a middle-aged person with the equivalent of a
year 11 education who is now working as a teacher aid at a public primary school. In their opinion,
calculators certainly have their place in the classroom, especially when they are assigned to work one on
one with a student, usually because that student has low math ability and is struggling to understand
the concept at hand. Interviewee A finds that allowing the student to use a calculator for simple
individual calculations eliminates an unnecessary struggle to calculate parts of the problem, and allows
them to help the student understand the concept better, with less confusion. Although, interviewee A
did recognise that this type of strategy is not plausible for the class teacher to use when teaching the
whole class, in that situation Interviewee A recognises that pencil and paper work makes it much easier
to understand individual students thinking strategies.

Interviewee B is a young adult a year 12 graduate, with no plans to attend university but who has
achieved several certificates and works full time; it is also useful to mention that they do experience
maths anxiety and is on the autism spectrum. Interviewee B finds math to be a subject that they have
always struggled with and believes that if their access to calculators was restricted, they would not have
passed their exams. They are of the opinion that early primary numeracy education should be relatively
calculator free, but as they move into late primary and high school, low math ability students deserve
the same chances to achieve as other students and for people like Interviewee B, this means access to a
calculator. Interviewee C also has the equivalent of a year 11 education, did not attend university and
works as a printer. They believe that calculator use should be restricted where prudent as they recently
discovered that they child depends on a calculator to solve very simple equations, they think that basic
number facts and mental computation is valued less in modern schools than when they went to school.
Interviewee D is an early school leaver, working in retail and they recognise their dependency on
calculators, but doesn’t notice it disadvantaging their day-to-day life in any way. They mention that they
almost always carry their smart phone with them, which has a calculating function, and they have
enough number sense to know how to calculate simple problems using this.

After reading the literature from scholars and educators on the subject, and also from listening to a
range of different personal opinions from non-professionals, my original standing on this subject has
rather changed. As can be seen in the second paragraph I took a rather stolid stance, expressing, in
essence, that calculators have little to no place in primary classrooms. However, after reading
Westwoods “Numeracy and Learning Difficulties: Approaches to Teaching and Assessment” (2000), I
realised that my previous stance on calculator use in primary classrooms was, arguably, uninclusive to
children of varying skills sets and abilities. This change in opinion was also solidified by the response
given by both interviewee A & B who expressed a similar point of view, also drawing on personal
experiences.

In conclusion, there is signifciant contention on the place that calculators have in primary classrooms
and their effectiveness in promoting number sense and students authentic understanding of concepts.
And although my initial standing on the topic did shift, I still believe that the use of calculators in primary
school settings should be limited to later primary school and should as little standing as possible when
intially developing childrens number sense at school.

References
History of the calculator: the microchip age and virtual age. (2014, March 24). Retrieved from The
Calculator Site : http://www.thecalculatorsite.com/articles/units/history-of-the-calculator-
2.php#microchip

Maloney, E. A., Beilock, S. L., & Fiske, S. T. (2015, October 1). Math Anxiety: A Factor in Math
Achievement Not to Be Ignored. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2(1), 4-
12. Retrieved April 3, 2017, from
http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/doi/full/10.1177/2372732215601438

Martinovic, D., Freiman, V., & Zekeriya, K. (2013). Visual Mathematics and Cyberlearning in View of
Affordance and Activity Theories. Visual Mathematics and Cyberlearning, 1(9), 209-234.
Retrieved April 4, 2017, from
http://download.springer.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/static/pdf/335/bok%253A978-94-007-
2321-4.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Fbook%2F10.1007%2F978-94-007-
2321-4&token2=exp=1491872443~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F335%2Fbok%25253A978-94-007-
2321-4

Olson, J. K., & Clough, M. P. (2001). Technology's Tendency To Undermine Serious Study: A Cautionary
Note. The Clearing House, 75(1), 8-13. Retrieved April 5, 2017, from
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/docview/196852475?rfr_id=info%3Axri%
2Fsid%3Aprimo
Parslow, G. R. (2010, January 28). Commentary: Decaying Numerical Skills. "I Can't Divide By 60 In My
Head.". Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 38(1), 46-47. doi:10.1002/bmb.20374

Watters , D. J., & Watters, J. J. (2006, July). Student Understanding of pH: "I Don't Know What The Log
Actually Is, I Only Know Where The Button Is On My Calculator. Biochemistry And Molecular
Biology Education, 34(4), 278-284. doi:10.1002/bmb.2006.494034042628

Westwood, P. (2000). Numeracy and Learning Difficulties: Approaches to Teaching and Assessment.
Camberwell, Victoria : ACER Press . Retrieved April 4, 2017, from
http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/fullText;dn=756665736571748;res=IEL
HSS

Westwood, P. (2014). What Teachers Need to Know about Numeracy. Australian Council for Educational
Research. Retrieved April 4, 2017, from
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/lib/uql/detail.action?docID=36080
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