Metacognitive Instruction and Students’ Achievement in Solving Mathematical Word Problems

Afia Iqbal, Naveed Sultana, Muhammad Tanveer Afzal

Abstract


Mathematics is considered as an important subject of elementary curriculum throughout the world due to its use in different fields of life. The compulsory component of mathematics is mathematical word problems. Word problems are considered as the difficult part of mathematics not only by students but mathematics teachers as well. Special teaching strategies are required to teach mathematical word problems to cope with the recent educational standards. Metacognitive instruction for teaching word problems has been proved affective by different educationists and researchers of world. Metacognitive instruction uses the hypothetical definition of metacognition, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills and practicing of self addressed questions. Students are practiced to ask a series of self addressed questions while solving word problems about: understanding, connection, strategies, and reflection. The present study was an attempt to experiment metacognitive instruction for teaching mathematical word problems on sixth class students at Govt. High School Abbottabad and to check its effectiveness as compared to traditional method of teaching. The study used true experimental research design; specifically the pretest-posttest control group design with 80 subjects (40 + 40) and data was collected and analyzed by t-test and descriptive analysis. The finding of study proved metacognitive instruction as an effective method for teaching mathematical word problems at elementary level.

Full Text:

PDF HTML

References


Ergul, H. Dr. (2004). Relationship between student characteristics and academic achievement in distance education and application on students of Anadolu University. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 5 (2).

Gay, L. R. (1992). Educational Research: Competencies for Analysis and Application. Publisher Merrill, The University of Michigan.

Helms-Lorenz, M., & Jacobse, A.E. (2008). Metacognitive skills of the giftedfrom a cross-cultural perspective. In F. Shaughnessy, M.V.J. Veenman, &C. Kleyn- Kennedy (Eds.), Meta-cognition: A recent review of research,theory, and perspectives (pp. 3–43). Hauppage, NY:Nova Science. Inspectie van het.

Kramarski, B & Mevarech, Z (1997) Cognitive-metacognitive training within aproblem solving based Logo environment. British Journal of EducationalPsychology, 67(4), p. 425-446.

Kramarski, B., &Mevarech, Z. R. (2003). Enhancing mathematical reasoning in the classroom: The effects of cooperative learning and metacognitivetraining. American Educational, Research Journal, 40, 281-310.

Maqsud, M. (1997). Effects of Metacognitive Skills and Nonverbal Ability on Academic Achievement of High School Pupils. Educational Psychology, 17(4), p. 387-397.

Mevarech, Z. R., & Fridkin, S. (2006). The effects of IMPROVE on

mathematical knowledge, mathematical reasoning and meta- cognition.Metacognition and Learning Journal, 1, 85–97.

Mousoulides, N., & Philippou, G. (2005). Students’ motivational beliefs, selfregulation strategies and mathematics achievement. In H. L. Chick, & J. L. Vincent(Eds.), Retrieved December 7, 2014, from

http://www.emis.de/proceedings/

Rahman, F., Jumani, N. B., Chaudry, M. A., Chisti, S. H., & Abbasi, F. (2010).Impact of Metacognitive Awareness on Performance of Students in Chemistry. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 3(10), p. 39-44.

Salma, J. & Sherwin, R. (2012). Students’ difficulties in comprehendingmathematical word problems in English language learning contexts.International Researcher, 1(3).

Sarwar, M., Yousaf, M. I.,Hussain, S., & Noreen, S. (2009). Relationship Between Achievement Goals, Meta-Cognition And Academic Success in Pakistan. Journal of College Teaching & Learning, 6(5), 19-30.

Schoenfeld, A. (1992). Learning to Think Mathematically: Problem Solving,Metacognition and Sense making in Mathematics. Handbook of research onmathematics thinking and learning. (Editor: Grouws, D) New York: MacMillan, p. 334-370.

Teong, S. K. (2000). The effect of Metacognitive Training on Mathematical Word Problem Solving of Singapore 11-12 year olds In a computerenvironment. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. School of Education:University of Leeds.

Veenman, M. V. J., Van Hout-wolters, B., & Afflerbach, P. (2006). Metacognitive and learning: Conceptual and methodological considerations. Meta-cognition Learning, 1, 3–14.

Victor, A.M. (2004). The effects of metacognitive instruction on the planningand academic achievement of first and second grade children. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. Chicago, IL: Graduate College of the Illinois. Institute of Technology.

Xin Y. P. (2007). Word problem solving tasks in textbooks and their relation tostudent performance. The Journal of Educational Research, 100, 347–360.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.30971/pje.v33i2.42

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Maintained by: Software Section, Directorate of ICT