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PUGALEE
ABSTRACT. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the impact of writ-
ing during mathematical problem solving. The study involved an analysis of ninth grade
algebra students’ written and verbal descriptions of their mathematical problem solving
processes. Through this comparison, a better understanding of the connection between
problem solving and writing is realized. The written and verbal data show a relationship
between the number of problem solving strategies tried by students and their success. The
majority of problem solving behaviors involve execution actions such as carrying out goals
and performing calculations. Students who construct global plans are more successful
problem solvers. Students engage in verification behaviors at various stages of problem
solving though the majority of students do not verify their final answers. While both oral
and written descriptions serve as a tool for understanding students’ thinking processes, a
comparison of the two modes of reporting, using a metacognitive framework as the lens
of analysis, reveals some important variations. Students who wrote descriptions of their
thinking were significantly more successful in the problem solving tasks (p < 0.05) than
students who verbalized their thinking. Differences in metacognitive behaviors also support
the premise that writing can be an effective tool in supporting metacognitive behaviors.
1. I NTRODUCTION
2. BACKGROUND
3.1. Sample
Twenty subjects enrolled in an introductory high school algebra class par-
ticipated in this study. These ninth grade subjects included eleven females
and nine males. Seven were African American and thirteen were Caucasian.
The subjects were assigned to one of two groups by alternating from a
ranked list based on a composite score from language arts and mathematics
results obtained from the previous year’s state mandated tests in these two
subjects. This process was utilized so that both groups would be com-
parable in mathematical and verbal abilities. Since the groups would be
alternating in providing written and verbal descriptions of their problem
solving processes, this procedure controlled for potential differences in the
language and mathematics abilities of the two groups.
3.3. Procedure
Students were involved in a two-week enrichment period where they en-
gaged in journal writing, focusing on describing their thought processes
while solving mathematics problems. At the beginning of ten class ses-
sions, students were given a mathematics problem to solve. Students were
instructed to write every thought that came to mind while solving the
problems. Students were given approximately ten minutes for the exer-
cises, though students who needed more time were allowed to complete
their work. The writing samples were collected each day and read by the
teacher who provided comments and questions related to the depth of
the details provided in the written descriptions of the students’ problem
solving processes. Students were encouraged to expand and elaborate on
steps where descriptive information was vague or nonexistent. In general,
the focus was to encourage students to extend both the quantity and qual-
ity of the descriptions of their mathematical thinking: providing details
about processes, justifying and reasoning about the steps taken in the prob-
lems. The problems along with the teacher’s feedback were returned during
the next class. Students were encouraged to read the comments, build on
strengths during subsequent writing sessions while also addressing the
teacher’s questions and comments intended to extend the students’ de-
scriptions. Since students routinely discussed problem solving approaches
and strategies in the classroom, this emphasis on writing exposed students
to the use of writing as a mode to describe their mathematical thinking.
The intensive writing focus was intended to facilitate students’ ability to
describe their problem solving processes orally as well as in writing. Ad-
ditionally, all students were given two trial sessions providing oral de-
scriptions of their problem solving processes while being videotaped. The
COMPARISON OF PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESSES 33
purpose of these sessions was to help students feel at ease with a cam-
era recording their oral descriptions and to provide some basic comments
related to how their verbal descriptions could be extended.
Data was collected over a six-day period with students divided into
groups as described. Students alternated in providing oral descriptions or
written descriptions as they worked the problems. For example, students
in Group 1 solved one of the difficult problems and provided oral descrip-
tions of their problem solving processes while Group 2 provided written
descriptions for the problem. The groups then switched the type of descrip-
tions provided for the second problem, also rated as difficult. This process
continued for the two medium level and two easy level problems. For each
problem there was a total of twenty student responses, ten from the group
providing verbal descriptions and ten from the group providing written
descriptions. Each student gave both an oral and written description of a
problem with a low, medium, and high level of difficulty.
Students who provided written descriptions on a given day worked the
problems individually in the classroom while those students who provided
oral descriptions were supervised in the library. This prevented students
from having any prior knowledge of the prompt for that day. For all prob-
lems, students were provided paper, calculators, and pencils without erasers
to discourage erasing of work. In the writing sessions, students were presen-
ted with the problem and read the following statement:
You have been given a mathematics problem to solve. Please record any work
for the problem on the paper provided just as you did in the practice sessions.
Remember to write everything which comes to mind during the solving of the
problem.
If any students were observed not writing for fifteen seconds, they were
prompted, “Please write what you are thinking.” The problems were col-
lected at the end of the session and labeled using codes for identification
purposes so that all responses from an individual student would be identi-
fiable along with the student’s race and gender, but protecting the personal
identity of the student.
Subjects in the think-aloud groups were taken one at a time from the
library to an adjoining media room where their problem solving sessions
were videotaped. The student was given the problem and materials. The
following instructions were read by the researcher:
You have been given a mathematics problem to solve. You may do any necessary
computations and work on the paper provided. While you are solving the problem,
please think out loud by telling everything that comes to mind while you are
solving the problem.
34 DAVID K. PUGALEE
The student was videotaped while solving the problem with the camera
focusing on the student’s work. If the student was silent for fifteen seconds,
s/he was prompted, “Please tell me what you are thinking.” When the
student finished, s/he was sent back to class with care taken that s/he did
not communicate with any students who were waiting to complete their
videotaped problem solving session. All work was collected and coded for
identification.
of data where the differences in the categories were separate and evident
while also demonstrating categories where the data interlocked in a mean-
ingful way (Patton, 2001). This process of grouping the data into themes
provided a link to patterns that could be induced from the categories (Gay
and Airasian, 2003). Five categories emerged with four corresponding to
the metacognitive framework used by Garofalo and Lester (1985) to de-
scribe mathematical problem solving processes: orientation, organization,
execution, and verification. The fifth category consisted of responses that
represented either students’ affective statements or filler phrases.
This initial data analysis of the transcribed verbal and written responses
from the problem solving sessions provided data components in the four
broad categories already mentioned. Data in each of these four categor-
ies were further classified into sub-categories using Garofalo and Lester’s
(1985) metacognitive framework. The fifth category which included filler
statements such as uhhh, ok, ummm and similar terms was not included
in this subsequent analysis. It might be noted, however, that students giv-
ing verbal descriptions of their problem solving processes used more such
fillers, 62 instances versus 41 occurrences in the written data. The categor-
ized data pieces varied in length from two sentences to sentence fragments
of a few words. The pieces were color-coded based on the type of metacog-
nitive behavior represented. Totals for the categories and sub-categories
were tabulated.
A university-level mathematics educator reviewed a random sample of
30% of the students’ work categorizing data segments using the same
qualitative methods. This process included categorizing data items into
one of the five broader categories, discussing discrepancies and reaching a
consensus on this initial classification, further classifying the data into sub-
categories from the metacognitive framework, discussing discrepancies in
this subsequent categorization and reaching a final consensus. An equal
number of problems in this random sample came from the writing group
and the ‘think-aloud’ group. Initial agreement was at 88% and all discrep-
ancies were satisfactorily resolved through reanalysis and discussion.
TABLE I
Frequencies of problem solving strategies
10 – Written 0 – Written
Problem 5 none 8 – Verbal none 2 – Verbal 1 – Verbal none
9 – Written 1 – Written 1 – Written
Problem 6 0 – Verbal 3 – Verbal none none 4 – Verbal none
1 – Written 0 – Written 3 – Written
Totals 13 – Verbal 20 – Verbal 1 – Verbal 13 -Verbal 18 -Verbal 3 -Verbal
12 – Written 19 – Written 2 – Written 14 – Written 15 – Written 2 – Written
COMPARISON OF PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESSES 37
TABLE II
Frequency of error types by group
Think-Aloud 4 10 30 20
Written 4 7 19 32
and 6, the percentage of students using the same strategy was 78 and 70.
These two problems also had the lowest rate of success. The strategy used
the least by the students was ‘working backwards’ which was only used
for problem number 2. The raters selected working backwards as the least
likely strategy to be used. The other strategies ranged from twenty-five,
approximately 19% of total, for using diagrams, tables, lists, and other
visuals to thirty-nine, approximately 30%, for guess and check. In general,
strategies actually used by students were consistent with the raters’ pre-
dictions about strategy use with some differences in the rankings between
predicted and actual strategy used. The raters selected making diagrams /
tables / other visuals, guess and check, and logical reasoning (in that order)
as the three most likely strategies to be used by students. Students actually
used guess and check most frequently followed by logical reasoning and
diagrams / tables / other visuals. Table I shows the primary strategy em-
ployed for each problem across the two reporting methods: think-aloud
and writing. A two proportion z test was computed for each strategy to
determine if there were significant differences in the strategies employed
based on whether the think-aloud or written reporting method was used.
There were no significant differences in the strategies used: the resulting
one tailed p values were all greater than .28.
An analysis of the types of errors made by the students indicated that the
majority of errors was procedural (66.2% of all errors) followed by compu-
tation (23%) and algebraic (10.8%). Table II shows total frequency across
all problems by type of error and reporting method. A test for differences
between proportions revealed a significant difference in procedural errors
based on students’ process reporting method. Students written descriptions
resulted in significantly fewer procedural errors when compared to think-
aloud descriptions (z = 2.222, p < 0.05) (see Bruning and Kintz, 1987).
There were no statistical differences between the two reporting methods
on algebraic and computation errors. All problems were scored for the
correct final answer. Those students who wrote about their problem solving
processes produced 32 correct solutions out of the total of 60 solutions,
38 DAVID K. PUGALEE
TABLE III
Frequency of metacognitive behaviors
Think-aloud Written
process process
ORIENTATION
Reading/Rereading 12 25
Initial/Subsequent Representation 9 10
Analysis of Information & Conditions 9 20
Assessment of Difficulty 11 16
Total Orientation∗∗ 38 71
ORGANIZATION
Identification Goals/Subgoals 11 22
Making/Implementing Global Plans 60 35
Data Organization 6 15
Total Organization 77 72
EXECUTION
Performing Local Goals 37 64
Monitoring Goals 14 31
Calculations 75 73
Redirecting 1 4
Total Execution∗∗ 127 172
VERIFICATION
Evaluating Decisions 42 18
Checking Calculations 2 3
Total Verification∗∗ 44 21
whereas the think aloud students produced 20 correct solutions. A test for
significance between two proportions was conducted resulting in a z score
of 2.2126, significant at the .05 level.
significance between proportions was only conducted for each of the four
phases: orientation, organization, execution, and verification.
Let’s say she falls 54 meters a second before her chute opens for 10 seconds and
she falls 90 seconds after her chute opens. . . . I’m going to try something else. I
am going to try 20 seconds before her chute opens. . . . I’m going to try 19. She
dropped 19 seconds before her chute opened. . . . So, I’m going to do 16. . . . I was
going to see if you could say he was like 17.5 seconds. . . . I’m going to try since I
need to go up a little bit I’m going to try 163 /4 before her chute opens and 821 /4
seconds after chute open. . .
COMPARISON OF PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESSES 41
by considering all ones and then all twos. He realizes the output is the same
and changes his approach to finding a pattern. “By looking at the numbers
– all the numbers, they each need twenty digits but zero needs nine digits.”
The other example of redirecting for problem 1 also involved a student
moving beyond a counting method for the apartment numbers to that of
finding a pattern.
Students who wrote descriptions while solving the problems produced
more than twice as many examples of monitoring goals than students who
engaged in think-aloud. One student wrote of his approach for finding the
average in problem 4, “Then what I did was pick some number and average
till I got the lowest he could make.” Monitoring goals was also evident
in more global statements such as the following comment from a student
using think-aloud. “By using the strategy guess and check, I found my
answer and the answer is 96.” The student displays confidence that the
selected strategy was viable in producing an acceptable response. Such
instances demonstrate the metacognitive nature of monitoring behaviors.
While it is difficult to infer the level of monitoring required in the types of
actions described by students using either process, such statements show
the importance of goals in directing students’ thinking about their problem
solving behaviors.
as “Might go a little bit higher” and “In order to check you would have
to draw everything out” represent cases where students’ perceptions about
their solutions appeared to indicate some dissonance but did not result in
any follow-up actions that would have changed their incorrect solutions.
The frequency of verification behaviors was not related to success with the
problem solving task.
A PPENDIX A
4. Kevin’s scores on 4 tests were 86, 72, 94, and 77. He wants his average
on five tests to be at least 85. What is the lowest score he can get on
the fifth test to achieve this average?
COMPARISON OF PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESSES 45
5. The numbers in the big circles are found by adding the numbers in
the two smaller circles on each side. Find the numbers for the small
circles.
6. Skydivers fall at 54 meters per second before their chutes open. They
fall at 6 meters per second after their chutes open. If a skydiver jumped
from a plane 1400 meters high and reached the ground in 100 seconds,
how high was she when she opened her chute?
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