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Word problems: a review of linguistic and numerical factors contributing to their difficulty
Gabriella Daroczy1, Magdalena Wolska2, Walt Detmar Meurers3
1Diagnostics and Cognitive Neuropsychology, Department of Psychology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany ; LEAD Graduate School, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany.
Abstract:
Word problems (WPs) belong to the most difficult and complex problem types that pupils encounter during their elementary-level mathematical development. In the classroom setting, they are often viewed as merely arithmetic tasks; however, recent research shows that a number of linguistic verbal components not directly related to arithmetic contribute greatly to their difficulty. In this review, we will distinguish three components of WP difficulty: (i) the linguistic complexity of the problem text itself, (ii) the numerical complexity of the arithmetic problem, and (iii) the relation between the linguistic and numerical complexity of a problem. We will discuss the impact of each of these factors on WP difficulty and motivate the need for a high degree of control in stimuli design for experiments that manipulate WP difficulty for a given age group.
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