In the school learning environment we often encounter notions like ‘problem’ and ‘word
problem’. Many regard the terms as synonyms when, in fact, they are not. The school curricula
dedicate a lot of lessons to problem tasks, but in fact pupils experience but a small portion of
tasks regarded as problems in terms of level of difficulty.
In the theoretical part of the thesis we present the difference between the notions of problem
and problem task, list the types of problems, and the stages of problem-solving. We also present
some research. We then link and compare the results of our own research to the ones presented
before, thus creating a wider global context.
The empirical part includes research of the pupils’ achievements in solving word problems. We
wanted to see whether there are any differences in the successful completion of word problems
in terms of sex, age, and type of task. A part of the research also included the teachers. We
analysed their knowledge evaluation and testing sheets and the handouts, researched what the
percentage of word problems in relation to the entire subject matter was, and how versatile the
word problems were in terms of level of difficulty. In particular, we wanted to know whether
or not teachers included the most difficult level of word problems, and what their share was.
Within this we explored the possible connection between the share of problem-level word
problems and the pupils’ success in solving them.
The results have shown that pupils are less successful when faced with word problems. Our
research shows slight differences in the successful completion of tasks in terms of sex – boys
were more successful, but the margin is statistically insignificant. The results have also shown
that age plays no role in completing the task successfully – third-grade pupils did best. Results
regarding the successful completion of the task in terms of task type have shown that pupils did
best when solving routine-complex tasks, but faced great difficulty with problem tasks. The
research conducted with the teachers has shown that they included word problems in their Math
lessons, but such tasks generally presented less than a third of the entire subject matter. Teachers
failed to include word problems demanding pupils’ problem-solving skills in their lessons – the
major share was taken by word problems involving complex procedural knowledge, followed
by a smaller share of routine procedural knowledge. We noticed that pupils were not used to
solving problem-based word problems, and therefore lower achievements were understandably
expected.
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