Problem solving skills of selected students in college algebra, SY 2000-2001: A case analysis

• Main Author: Laniog, Marissa SJ.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2001
• Subjects: Mathematical ability > Testing; Problem solving; Question-answering systems; College students; Algebra; Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/2670
• Institution: De La Salle University

The ability to solve problems is one of the most important skills a mathematics student should have. Contemporary mathematics education gears its goals towards the acquisition of necessary skills to solve problems. Numerous studies have been conducted to develop and/or enhance the problem solving skills of students. To ensure that this is accomplished, researchers look closely at various ways of building the problem-solving schema of learners. They investigate the learner's cognition and try to draw inferences on how learners solve mathematical problems.In this study, the researcher investigates the problem solving skills of nine college freshmen students. The students' level of understanding of word problem is determined in terms of grasping process and solution strategies. The grasping process is classified as: grasping with understanding, incomplete grasping, prothetic grasping or grasping without understanding. The solution strategy is classified as: trial and error (with some attention paid on the data and conditions in the problem, guessing technique), based on the identification of key words/word groups in the text or on the insight into the problem structure (searching-in-the memory, textation, with global understanding of the problem structure), algebraic.