Effects of Instructions and Representation on Mathematical Problem-Solving

摘要

We investigated whether different instructions have different representations to target problems, hence task representations mostly determine the direction of typical mistakes in permutation problem-solving. We hypothesize that difference instructions produce different representations of a permutation problem in an identical description. The participants were randomly assigned to the three groups; the equation instruction group, the subgoal instruction group, and control group. Results confirmed our prediction that the treatment groups solved the problem more correctly than the control group. More importantly, a 'subgoal instruction(a subgoal groups a set of steps under a meaningful task or purpose)' decreased the typical mistakes.