Improving secondary students' perception of the ?dreaded mathematics word problem assignment? by giving them more word problems

Academic Remediation: Educational Applications of Research on Assignment Preference and Choice

“…Furthermore, adding these brief problems did not reduce problem completion rates or accuracy levels on target 3 3 2 problems. Subsequent studies showed that interspersing additional brief problems had a similar impact on sixth-grade students (Logan & Skinner, 1998) and college and secondary students working on mathematics word problems (Wildmon et al, 1999;Wildmon et al, 1998).…”

“…Recently, researchers have shown how educators can enhance students' perceptions of assignments and academic behaviors by lengthening assignments (Johns et al, in press;Logan & Skinner, 1998;McCurdy, Skinner, Grantham, Watson, & Hindman, 2001;Skinner, Fletcher, Wildmon, & Belfiore, 1996;Skinner et al, 1999;Skinner, Robinson, Johns, Logan, & Belfiore, Skinner, Wallace, and Neddenriep 59 1996;Wildmon, Skinner, McCurdy, & Sims, 1999;Wildmon, Skinner, & McDade, 1998). Skinner, Robinson et al (1996) allowed college students to work on two mathematics assignment.…”

“…Although it may appear that this procedure is effective because the interspersed problems are easier, research suggests that students prefer interspersal assignments because adding these problems increases their discrete task completion rates (Skinner, Fletcher et al, 1996;Skinner et al, 1999;Skinner, Robinson et al, 1996;Wildmon et al, 1999;Wildmon et al, 1998). Thus, this procedure is most likely to be effective when (a) assignments contain discrete tasks, (b) interspersed problems require much less time to complete than the target tasks, and (c) interspersed problems are extremely brief so they do not substantially increase the effort associated with the tasks.…”