An Analysis of Undesirable Responses in Mathematical Problem Posing: The Perspective of the Problem-Posing Process

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Student Voice, Choice, and Discourse (Table 8)

Abstract

Recent attention has been paid to analyzing the characteristics of posed problems in problem-posing research. However, as reported in various studies, students have undesirable responses such as nonmathematical problems or statements, but few studies have analyzed the features of such undesirable responses. This study uses the data from a problem-posing project to analyze the characteristics of middle school students’ undesirable responses in mathematical problem posing. The analysis shows that most of the undesirable responses were related to insufficient understanding of the problem-posing tasks. In particular, students had difficulty understanding the problem-posing prompts. The findings of these analyses not only contribute to our understanding of problem-posing processes but also have implications for the design of problem-posing tasks.

Authors

• Hua Ran, Jiangnan University

• Jinfa Cai, University of Delaware

• Faith Muirhead, University of Delaware