Senior High School Students’ Ability in Mathematical Word Problems

Abstract

Nowadays, students have trouble solving word puzzles, even though they are trained to conduct another mathematical activity. The primary purpose of this study was to enhance the students’ ability to solve word problems. A questionnaire was used as a data-gathering tool, and the descriptive survey-correlational design was used. The data were treated using frequencies, ratios, weighted mean, and correlation analysis. The research sample consisted of 286 high school students from the University of La Salette, Incorporated in Santiago City. The majority of students are female, and took ABM as their strand. The findings of the study showed that choosing/writing an appropriate equation and performing it in a given problem affects most students’ ability to solve word problems. Moreover, the results showed that students were not sure of what they will feel when they encounter a complicated word problem. Furthermore, the study implies that their teachers did not allow them to use different strategies in solving word problems. Correlation analysis revealed that the different factors such as understanding word problems; attitudes of the students towards solving word problems; prior knowledge about the basic concept of math; and Teacher’s instructional techniques are highly and positively correlated to one another. The results imply that the teachers should be encouraged and be familiarized in using digital teaching methods and other significant emerging mathematics teaching and learning developments.