The ability to identity word problem types longitudinally predicts children’s mathematical problem-solving

Abstract

Many children face difficulties in solving word problems, but we have yet learned enough about the sources of such difficulties. The current study examined whether the ability to classify word problems into different word problem types played a significant role in children’s mathematical problem-solving. Over 200 fifth graders were given a word problem reasoning task in which they had to match word problems with schematic diagrams that depict different word problem types. They were also tested on their mathematical problem-solving multiple times. The ability to match word problems to the corresponding schematic diagrams was shown to be longitudinally predictive of children’s mathematical problem-solving performance even after controlling for the autoregressor effect. Such a relation was mediated by children’s ability to convert word problems into the correct number sentences/equations. The findings not only highlight the importance of recognizing the underlying word problem type in mathematical problem-solving, but also provide a practical tool to assess such an ability.