Students who are learning English as a second language (ESL) have lower performance on
mathematics problems based in language than students who are fully fluent in English.
Students’ performance on word-based mathematics problems is directly related to their
English reading comprehension and language fluency (Abedi & Lord, 2001; Brown, 2005;
Hofstetter, 2003). This places students who are not fully fluent in English at a disadvantage
in the mathematics classroom. Students’ self-efficacy beliefs also impacts their mathematics
performance and motivation. The self-efficacy of students who are not fluent in English may
be negatively impacted by their struggle with language. For this exploratory study, image-based
mathematics problems were created to communicate problem solving questions with
pictures instead of language or computational symbols. This problem format was
investigated as a potential alternative to word-based or computation-based problems. Grade
6 students registered in ESL level 2, ESL level 4, and not registered in ESL, completed a
mathematics task with four computation problems, four language-based problems, and four
image-based problems. During a follow-up interview, students’ solution strategies and
thought processes were explored further. The results of this study indicated that the
inclusion of wordless mathematics problems, such as image-based problems, assisted some
of the students who were learning basic English interpersonal communication skills. As
nonroutine problems, image-based mathematics also encouraged complex thought and
mathematics understanding. Students in ESL Level 2 demonstrated higher self-efficacy
beliefs on image-based problems than word problems.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/5037 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Pel, Amanda Jean |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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