Solving word problems: more than reading issues for deaf students

Deaf and hearing college students were given 30 mathematics problems to solve. The initial 15 were presented as numeric/graphic problems, followed by 15 corresponding word problems, with both conditions sequenced for a progressive increase in problem complexity. Each word problem described the kind of shape and measurement information that was presented in its corresponding numeric/graphic problem. The results showed that the deaf college students, regardless of reading level, were comparable in performance to the hearing college students when solving the numeric/graphic problems and the initial, least complex set of corresponding word problems. However, as the complexity of the descriptive information in the word problems increased along with the complexity of the problem situations, the performance scores of the deaf students decreased. No comparable decrease was observed in the hearing students' scores. While reading ability level was associated with the deaf students' lower scores when solving word problems, the analyses show that other factors also contributed.