A Study of Math Word Problem Solving Process for Students with Mild Mental Retardation in Elementary School

• Main Authors: Shing-Eing Chang, 張馨尹
• Other Authors: 何素華
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/79261148885256216202

碩士 === 國立嘉義大學 === 國民教育研究所 === 90 === The purpose of this study was to investigate the math word problem solving process for four students with mild mental retardation in elementary school. The math problem solving process included four aspects：comprehension of the problems、problem solving strategies、execution for computing and checking the answers. The four students had to answer 9 addition and subtraction word problems which were the patterns of change、combine and compare problems. It combined observation and interviews to collect quantitative and qualitative information as main data sources for researcher to analyze the word problem solving process of the subjects. The major findings were as follows： 1.The performance of students in comprehending the meaning of problems was influenced by question types. Their major difficulty was to comprehend the relation and question parts of problems. 2.Students had shown a better comprehension performance on the result unknown of change and combine pattern problems rather than the change unknown of compare pattern problems. 3.The strategy used mostly by students was diagram ，but they failed to translate words into math sentences. 4.The question types influenced their will to choose the strategy，for example，they preferred the diagram or object strategy to counting fingers in compare problems. 5.Part of the students could compute numbers and explain meaning for their solution correctly. The modes of computing students used evolved from object counting to number fact. 6.Most of the students could find and correct the mistakes by means of rereading words or recounting numbers of the problems. 7.Most of them used the same methods to check the answers as they did at the first time， however they did it always under the suggestion of researcher. According to the aforementioned findings， application of the mathematical word problem instruction and further research were recommended. Key words: mild mental retardation, math word problems, math problem solving process