Fifth-grade students’ approaches to and beliefs of mathematics word problem solving: a large sample Hungarian study

Abstract

Mathematical word problems used in Verschaffel et al.'s (Learning and Instruction 7:339-359, 1994) study were applied in several follow-up studies. The goal of the present study was to replicate and extend the results of this line of research in a large sample of Hungarian students using an alternative set of data-gathering and dataanalysis techniques. 4,037 students forming a nationwide representative sample of the Hungarian fifth-grade student population (aged 10-11) completed the test. The test contained five word problems from the list of 10 P('problematic)-items from Verschaffel et al.'s test. In contrast to all previous research in this domain, we used a multiplechoice format, where three options were given for each task: (a) routine-based, non-realistic answer, (b) numerical response that does take into account realistic considerations, (c) a realistic solution stating that the task cannot be solved. The hypotheses of this study were: (1) Students' responses will confirm previous results, i.e. upper elementary school students prefer to respond to P-items by means of the routine-based answer; (2) Most students will demonstrate a more or less consistent preference for a given answer type (a, b or c) over problems; (3) Students' school math marks will have low correlation indices with students' achievement on these word problems. Our results confirm student's overall tendency to follow non-realistic approaches when doing school word problem solving. The tendency even holds when confronting students with various kinds of realistic answers. Our results show that students demonstrate response patterns over problems, and that the correlation with math school performance is significant but small.

Word problems: a review of linguistic and numerical factors contributing to their difficulty

“…There are so-called non-standard WPs ( Jimenez and Verschaffel, 2014 ) which can be non-solvable WPs or if they are solvable some have multiple solutions and may contain irrelevant data. In the recent literature, non-standard WPs are getting more and more attention ( Yeap et al, 2005 ; Csikos et al, 2011 ). Children give a high level of incorrect answers to non-standard WPS because these seem to contradict their mathematics-related beliefs learned in the classroom.…”

Incorporating Humor into Mathematical Word Problems: Is there a Negative Effect on Students’ Performance?

“…Five out of these P-items were reconstructed as closed-question format items by Csíkos et al (2011). While these items were labelled as P5, P9, P6, P3 and P1 items in Verschaffel et al's work (1994), in subsequent publications within the profession, these problems became designated as the Runner, Rope, School, Water and Friends items.…”

“…While these items were labelled as P5, P9, P6, P3 and P1 items in Verschaffel et al's work (1994), in subsequent publications within the profession, these problems became designated as the Runner, Rope, School, Water and Friends items. The closed-question-format versions of these five items (slightly modified as compared to the ones in Csíkos et al 2011) formed the first subset of word problems used in the current investigation. The item stem of these five items are as follows:…”

Matematikai szöveges feladatok és tanulási szokások kapcsolatának vizsgálata

“…Vizsgálatok középpontjában állt például a tanulók tanulási stratégiáinak, motivációjának, meggyőződéseiknek vizsgálata (B. Németh és Habók, 2006;Csíkos, Kelemen és Verschaffel, 2011;Habók, 2013;Józsa, 2007). Összességében a tanulásról alkotott komplex képet a kognitív, affektív és metakognitív dimenziói adják (Hoskins és Fredriksson, 2008).…”