Children posing word problems during a paper-and-pencil test: Relationship between achievement and problem posing ability

Abstract

Children writing mathematics word problems has been advocated by mathematicians and mathematics educators. Mathematics curricula in several countries have made the call for teachers to provide opportunities for children to solve as well as to formulate problems. Problem posing, however, is a relatively novel task among Singapore children. In this paper we describe one school's attempt in getting Primary Five children to pose problems during a traditional paper-and-pencil achievement test. The paper focuses on the relationship between the children's achievement and the problems they posed. All of the 115 Primary Five children in a school were asked to write a word problem based on a pictorial stimulus. The data was used to explore if high-achieving children pose more complex problems than low-achieving ones. The children's examination score was used to form a high-achievement group and a low-achievement group. The problems posed by children in each group were analyzed according to the number of information included in them to reveal their mathematical complexity. The results have significant implications on the use of paper-and-pencil tests to assess children's ability to think mathematically.