This experiment investigated the effect of training conditional relations between pictorial and numerical fractional stimuli, with and without composition training, upon the learning of the proportion concept. It was evaluated the formation of equivalence classes, expansion of classes formed, generalization to new situations, and pencil and paper problem solving with fractional stimuli. The participants were 20 students of the sixth grade of Elementary School. The QEG and TCQEC groups were exposed to training and testing of conditional relations, but the last group was exposed, additionally, to a fractional composition training before the conditional relations training; two control groups were exposed only to the initial and final tests. The results indicated the formation of equivalence classes, but did not show effects of the composition training.
stimulus equivalence; fractions learning; concept of proportion; composition training
