The effects of teaching a mathematics problem solving strategy on the problem solving ability of grade nine students

摘要

Forty grade 9 students were selected from a small rural board insouthern Ontario. The students were in two classes and were treated astwo groups. The treatment group received instruction in the LogicalNumerical Problem Solving Strategy every day for 37 minutes over a 6week period. The control group received instruction in problem solvingwithout this strategy over the same time period. Then the control groupreceived the treat~ent and the treatment group received the instructionwithout the strategy.Quite a large variance was found in the problem solving ability ofstudents in grade 9. It was also found that the growth of the problemsolving ability achievement of students could be measured using growthstrands based upon the results of the pilot study. The analysis of theresults of the study using t-tests and a MANOVA demonstrated that theteaching of the strategy did not significaritly (at p s 0.05) increase theproblem solving achievement of the students. However, there was anencouraging trend seen in the data.