Stefan Ufer, Anna Kaiser, Frank Niklas, Laura Gabler
{"title":"I have three more than you, you have three less than me? Levels of flexibility in dealing with additive situations","authors":"Stefan Ufer, Anna Kaiser, Frank Niklas, Laura Gabler","doi":"10.3389/feduc.2024.1340322","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Assessment and intervention in the early years should ideally be based on evidence-based models describing the structure and development of students’ skills. Mathematical word problems have been identified as a challenge for mathematics learners for a long time and in many countries. We investigate flexibility in dealing with additive situations as a construct that develops during grades 1 through 3 and contributes to the development of students’ word problem solving skills. We introduce the construct based on prior research on the difficulty of different situation structures entailed in word problems. We use data from three prior empirical studies with N = 383 German grade 2 and 3 students to develop a model of discrete levels of students’ flexibility in dealing with additive situations. We use this model to investigate how the learners in our sample distribute across the different levels. Moreover, we apply it to describe students’ development over several weeks in one study comprising three measurements. We derive conclusions about the construct in terms of determinants of task complexity, and about students’ development and then provide an outlook on potential uses of the model in research and practice.","PeriodicalId":52290,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2024.1340322","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Assessment and intervention in the early years should ideally be based on evidence-based models describing the structure and development of students’ skills. Mathematical word problems have been identified as a challenge for mathematics learners for a long time and in many countries. We investigate flexibility in dealing with additive situations as a construct that develops during grades 1 through 3 and contributes to the development of students’ word problem solving skills. We introduce the construct based on prior research on the difficulty of different situation structures entailed in word problems. We use data from three prior empirical studies with N = 383 German grade 2 and 3 students to develop a model of discrete levels of students’ flexibility in dealing with additive situations. We use this model to investigate how the learners in our sample distribute across the different levels. Moreover, we apply it to describe students’ development over several weeks in one study comprising three measurements. We derive conclusions about the construct in terms of determinants of task complexity, and about students’ development and then provide an outlook on potential uses of the model in research and practice.
早年的评估和干预最好以描述学生技能结构和发展的实证模型为基础。长期以来,在许多国家,数学文字问题一直被认为是数学学习者面临的一项挑战。我们将灵活处理加法情境作为一种在一至三年级发展起来的、有助于学生文字问题解决能力发展的建构来研究。我们在先前对文字问题中不同情境结构的难度进行研究的基础上引入了这一建构。我们利用之前对 N = 383 名德国二、三年级学生进行的三项实证研究的数据,建立了学生处理加法情境灵活性的离散水平模型。我们利用这一模型来研究样本中的学习者如何在不同水平之间进行分配。此外,我们还在一项包含三次测量的研究中应用该模型来描述学生在数周内的发展情况。我们从任务复杂性的决定因素和学生的发展两方面得出结论,然后展望了该模型在研究和实践中的潜在用途。