• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• 제25권4호
• /
• pp.297-312
• /
• 2022

Word problems can lead learners to more meaningfully learn mathematics by providing learners with various problem-solving experiences and guiding them to apply mathematical knowledge to the context. This study attempted to provide implications for the textbook writing and teaching and learning process by examining the word problem of elementary mathematics textbooks from the perspective of practical context. The word problem of elementary mathematics textbooks was examined, and elementary mathematics textbooks in the United States and Finland were referenced to find specific alternatives. As a result, when setting an unnatural context or subject to the word problem in elementary mathematics textbooks, artificial numbers were inserted or verbal expressions and illustrations were presented unclearly. In this case, it may be difficult for learners to recognize the context of the word problem as separate from real life or to solve the problem by understanding the content required by the word problem. In the future, it is necessary to organize various types of word problems in practical contexts, such as setting up situations in consideration of learners in textbooks, actively using illustrations and diagrams, and organizing verbal expressions and illustrations more clearly.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• 제47권4호
• /
• pp.519-543
• /
• 2008

The study has been conducted with 29 children from 4th to 6th grades to realize how they understand addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of whole numbers, and how their understanding influences solving of one-step word problems. Children's understanding of operations was categorized into "adding" and "combination" for additions, "taking away" and "comparison" for subtractions, "equal groups," "rectangular arrange," "ratio," and "Cartesian product" for multiplications, and "sharing," "measuring," "comparison," "ratio," "multiplicative inverse," and "repeated subtraction" for divisions. Overall, additions were mostly understood additions as "adding"(86.2%), subtractions as "taking away"(86.2%), multiplications as "equal groups"(100%), and divisions as "sharing"(82.8%). This result consisted with the Fischbein's intuitive models except for additions. Most children tended to solve the word problems based on their conceptual structure of the four arithmetic operations. Even though their conceptual structure of arithmetic operations helps to better solve problems, this tendency resulted in wrong solutions when problem situations were not related to their conceptual structure. Children in the same category of understanding for each operations showed some common features while solving the word problems. As children's understanding of operations significantly influences their solutions to word problems, they needs to be exposed to many different problem situations of the four arithmetic operations. Furthermore, the focus of teaching needs to be the meaning of each operations rather than computational algorithm.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
• /
• 제13권6호
• /
• pp.69-86
• /
• 2017

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the effects of small-group arithmetic word problem activities with concrete materials on 5 year old children's mathematical ability and attitude. Methods: A total of 34 five-year-old children (control group 16 children, experimental group18 children) attending two kindergartens in P city participated in this study. Fifteen small-group arithmetic word problem activities with concrete materials were conducted in the classroom of the experimental group twice a week for eight weeks. Before and after the activities, all the participants individually took a basic arithmetic test, mathematical word problem solving test, and mathematical attitudes test. Results: First, we observed that the children in the experimental group achieved significantly higher scores on the mathematical ability tests, including the basic arithmetic test and mathematical word problems solving test when compared to the children in the control group. Second, we also found that children in the experimental group showed higher improvement in the mathematical attitudes test than their counterparts. Conclusion/Implications: The results of this study suggest that small-group arithmetic word problem activities with concrete materials are effective in improving children's mathematical ability and attitudes.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
• /
• 제17권4호
• /
• pp.271-286
• /
• 2006

In this paper, we introduce automatic question generation technique using the language resources like User-Word Intelligent Network(U-WIN) and Korean dictionary including quite a for of information. And we present Korean word learning system with this technique. The item pool method which almost learning-system are using makes some problems. As a solution of the problems, we classified into 8 question type and implemented the Korean word learning system which is making the Korean question automatically by using the morphological and semantic information according to the automatic question generation pattern of each type.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
• /
• 제33권11호
• /
• pp.965-978
• /
• 2006

This paper implements an automatic Korean word-spacing system based on word-recognition using morpheme unigrams and the pattern that the categories of those morpheme unigrams share within a candidate word. Although previous work on Korean word-spacing models has produced the advantages of easy construction and time efficiency, there still remain problems, such as data sparseness and critical memory size, which arise from the morpho-typological characteristics of Korean. In order to cope with both problems, our implementation uses the stochastic information of morpheme unigrams, and their category patterns, instead of word unigrams. A word's probability in a sentence is obtained based on morpheme probability and the weight for the morpheme's category within the category pattern of the candidate word. The category weights are trained so as to minimize the error means between the observed probabilities of words and those estimated by words' individual-morphemes' probabilities weighted according to their categories' powers in a given word's category pattern.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
• /
• 제22권2호
• /
• pp.161-181
• /
• 2018

This study involved an investigation of prospective elementary teachers' preconceptions and experiences of diagrams and their ability to draw diagrams in solving math word problems. A questionnaire and two math word problems were administered to prospective elementary teachers who began to taking an introductory mathematics education course. The results from the analysis of their responses to the questionnaire items indicate that prospective elementary teachers appreciate the value of diagrams as tools for problem solving and communication. In addition, prospective elementary teachers have the will not only to teach their future students how to use diagrams but also to encourage them to draw diagrams in solving math word problems. However, the results also indicates that prospective elementary teachers neither use diagrams spontaneously in their math problem solving activities nor have confidence in drawing useful diagrams. Prospective elementary teachers also manifested low scores on the questionnaire items asking whether they were taught how to draw useful diagrams or encouraged by their teachers to use diagrams in their previous learning experiences. The results from the analysis of the diagrams that prospective elementary teachers drew in solving math word problems showed that most of them had difficulty drawing diagrams that represent their reasoning and solving process.

• Research in Mathematical Education
• /
• 제11권4호
• /
• pp.247-263
• /
• 2007

Problem solving takes place not only in mathematics classes but also in real-world. For this reason, a problem and the structure of problem solving, and the enhancing of success in problem solving is a subject which has been studied by any educators. In this direction, the aim of this study is that the strategy used by students in Turkey when solving oral problems and their achievements of choosing operations when solving oral problems has been researched. In the research, the students have been asked three types of questions made up groups of 5. In the first category, S-problems (standard problems not requiring to determine any strategy but can be easily solved with only the applications of arithmetical operations), in the second category, AS-SA problems (problems that can be solved with the key word of additive operation despite to its being a subtractive operation, and containing the key word of subtractive operation despite to its being an additive operation), and in the third category P-problems (problematic problem) take place. It is seen that students did not have so much difficulty in S-problems, mistakes were made in determining operations for problem solving because of memorizing certain essential concepts, and the succession rate of students is very low in P-problems. The reasons of these mistakes as a summary are given below: $\cdot$ Because of memorizing some certain key concepts about operations mistakes have been done in choosing operations. $\cdot$ Not giving place to problems which has no solution and with incomplete information in mathematics. $\cdot$ Thinking of students that every problem has a solution since they don't encounter every type of problems in mathematics classes and course books.

• Research in Mathematical Education
• /
• 제17권3호
• /
• pp.169-180
• /
• 2013

Communicating about mathematics is an essential component in learning mathematics and is a key standard for successful learning in a mathematics classroom using stories and storytelling as a catalyst to mathematics instruction. This, however, can make learning math for students with language deficiencies since they are working toward mastering both basic language proficiency as well as the specialized language needed for mathematics. This is a particular concern because the number of students of multicultural families is rapidly increasing. In this paper, we discuss the challenges and complexities of language-deficient students learning math in a classroom where communication is a key standard for successful learning, and suggest implications for teaching, by presenting an USA elementrny teacher's scaffolding to make reading and solving word problems less intimidating for her language learner students as well as native speaking students.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
• /
• 제27권4호
• /
• pp.429-448
• /
• 2013

The aim of this study was to examine how analogical mapping articulation activity played a role in solving process in word problems. We analyzed the problem solving strategies and processes that the participating thirty-three 8th grade students employed when solving the problems through analogical mapping articulation activities, and also the characteristics of the thinking processes from the aspects of similarity. As a result, this study indicates that analogical mapping articulation activity could be helpful when the students solved similar word problems, although some of them gained correct answers through pseudo-analytic thinking. Not to have them use pseudo-analytic thinking, it might be necessary to help them recognize superficial similarity and difference among the problems and construct structural similarity to know the principle of solution associated with the problematic situations.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
• /
• 제26권3호
• /
• pp.301-316
• /
• 2012

Ball, Thames & Phelps(2008) introduced the idea of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching(MKT) teacher. Specialized Content Knowledge(SCK) is one of six categories in MKT. SCK is a knowledge base, useful especially for math teachers to analyze errors, evaluate alternative ideas, give mathematical explanations and use mathematical representation. The purpose of this study is to analyze the elementary teacher's SCK. 29 six graders made word problems with respect to division fraction $9/10{\div}2/5$. These word problems were classified four sentence types based on Sinicrope, Mick & Kolb(2002) and then representative four sentence types were given to 10 teachers who have taught six graders. Data analysis was conducted through the teachers' evaluation of the answers(word problems) and revision of students' mathematical errors. This study showed how to know meanings of fraction division for effective teaching. Moreover, it suggested several implications to develop SCK for teaching and learning.