How task instruction influences the performance and the text reading pattern in case of inconsistent compare problems in primary school.

Abstract

"Compare word problems are quite difficult for primary school students, especially inconsistent ones when the relational term from the problem text is not consistent with the arithmetic operation required for the solution. The present study investigates the effect of different task instructions on successfulness in solving inconsistent compare word problems and in the reading pattern of the text of these problems. Therefore, in this study eye-tracking was used to monitor participants eye movements while reading and solving compare word problems. Fifty-six 4th graders’ eye-movement behavior and responses were collected to analyze the fixation time and fixation number on different data from the text of the tasks and the solution time on each task. In the test inconsistent compared problems were given requiring the use of multiplication/division operations. The problems were divided into three groups with different task instructions. In the first group of problems the requirement was to solve the problems, pupils could freely concentrate on the text elements they wanted as the text of the problem was classically given. In the second case students were forced to spend more time focusing on the context of the problem as they first got the text of the problem with symbols instead of numbers. In the case of the third group of problems, pupils had to create the graphical representation of the word problem considering the value of the given variable and the relation between the two variables. The results show that the instruction type influenced both performance and reading pattern. When students are forced to spend more time reading the entire text (problems given first with symbols), the solution success rate is higher. Graphical representation of the problem’s data also contributes to a better performance. There are also differences in percentages of reading times spent on fixation different key elements of the text or different sentences of the problem. The key element fixated for a higher percentage of time depends on the type of instruction."