The influence of context and order of numerical data on the difficulty of word problems for grade 6 pupils
Abstrakt
Word problems have been identified as an area of concern and have been a focus of many studies. The article investigates the influence of two parameters on the difficulty of word problems and on the frequency of mistakes grade 6 pupils make when solving them.
Four variants of a two-step word problem were made which have the same mathematical structure but differ in the order of numerical data and/or context. These variants were solved by four equally abled groups of pupils and their solutions were analysed.
The order of numerical data had a statistically significant effect on the success rate of pupils and on the presence of mistakes of wrong mathematization. However, the effect of the context (familiar versus unfamiliar) was rather weak.
The study brought some puzzling effects such as a smaller influence of the order of data in the problem with the unfamiliar context than with the familiar one. They will be investigated in further research.