Effects of Teaching Sixth-Grade Students to Modify Format Variables of Math Word Problems

Abstract

THREE EXPERIMENTS INVESTIGATED structural format variables of math word problems that appear to interfere with average achieving sixth-grade students' abilities to read and solve those problems. The first experiment asked gifted students to rewrite word problems to make them easier to understand for peers who achieve less well in math. Content analysis uncovered three format variables identified as interfering with comprehension. A second experiment, a repeated measures design, presented identical word problems, one with the interfering structural format variable and one without, for each of the three variables. Large differences in successful problem solution rates were observed in favor of the easier formatted word problems. A third experiment, in which each experimental subject in one format variable treatment was also a control in two other format variable treatment groups, taught sixth-grade students to modify the three interfering structural format variables in word problems to increase their comprehensibility. Treatment effects were large enough to account for 60% and 70% of the total variance in two treatment conditions and 37% in a third condition.