The purpose of this study was to investigate the problem solving strategies,
problem solving episodes, and metacognition of five Turkish students just graduated
from elementary school and explore the interplay of these factors on their problem
solving success in mathematics. The research data had been collected by clinical
interviews and a self monitoring questionnaire followed by the interviews. Ten
mathematical problems that participant students had worked on were selected among
the released mathematical literacy items used in Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA) 2003.
The problem solving strategies used by participants were coded according to
the descriptions given by Posamentier & / Krulik (1999). The cognitive-metacognitive
problem solving framework developed by Artzt and Armour-Thomas (1992) has
been used to observe the problem solving episodes of the participants. The coding
system developed by Pappas et al. (2003) has been utilized to examine the major
components of metacognition (mistake recognition, adaptability, awareness and expression of thought) of the participants. The self-monitoring questionnaire
responses were analyzed to crosscheck the results obtained from the clinical
interviews.
The problem solving behaviors of the participants observed in the study
confirmed their academic success levels. The study confirmed that the problem
solving success is too complex to be clarified by a unique property or a behavior of
the problem solver. The problem solving requires overcoming various obstacles to
reach a successful result. Hence, not only the students should have the required
mathematical knowledge and a good repertoire of different problem solving
strategies, but also they should know when and how to use those strategies, and also
they could monitor and regulate their problem solving processes using their
metacognitive skills. So mathematics teachers should provide problems that require
different problem solving strategies and encourage the students to explore new
strategies, to take risks in trying and to discuss failures and successes with peers and
teacher.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12609226/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 January 2008 |
| Creators | Okur, Serkan |
| Contributors | Erbas, Ayhan Kursat |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for METU campus |
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