Laming
Pergamon
nnd Inrrrucrion. Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 339-359. 1991 0 1991 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0959.4752197 $17.00 + 0.00
PII:SO959-4752(97)OOOOS-X
PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ CONCEPTIONS AND BELIEFS ABOUT THE ROLE OF REAL-WORLD KNOWLEDGE IN MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF SCHOOL WORD PROBLEMS L. VERSCHAFFELI, Center for Instructional
E. DE CORTE
and I. BORGHART
Psychology and Technology, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium
University
of Leuven,
Abstract Recent research has documented that many pupils show a strong tendency to exclude real-world knowledge from their solutions of school arithmetic word problems. In the present study, a test consisting of 14 word problems-half of which were problematic from a realistic point of viewwas administered to a large group of students from three different teacher training institutes in Flanders. For each word problem, the student-teachers were first asked to solve the problem themselves, and afterwards to evaluate four different answers given by pupils. The results revealed a strong tendency among student-teachers to exclude real-world knowledge from their own spontaneous solutions of school word problems as well as from their appreciations of the pupils’ answers. 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd
Theoretical
Background
For several years it has been argued that considerable experience with traditional school arithmetic word problems develops in pupils a strong tendency to exclude real-world knowledge and realistic considerations from the different stages of their solution processes, i.e., the initial understanding of the problem, the construction of a mathematical model, the actual computational activities, and the interpretation and eva1uatio.n of the outcome of these computations. Rather than functioning as realistic contexts that invite or even force pupils to use their commonsense knowledge and experience about the real world, school arithmetic word problems have become artificial, puzzle-like ‘tasks that are perceived as being separate from the real world. Thus, pupils learn that relying on commonsense knowledge and making realistic considerations about the problem context-as one typically does in real-life problem situations encountered outside school-is harmful rather than helpful in arriving at the “correct” answer
‘L. Verschaffel
is a senior research
associate
of the National 339
Fund for Scientific
Research,
Belgium.