SOLVING MATHEMATICAL WORD PROBLEMS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS: A CASE OF TINDERET SUB-COUNTY, NANDI COUNTY KENYA

Abstract

Mathematical word problems are concepts taught at the end of every topic to allow students apply the content that was taught. The study focused on investigating the student’s difficulties in solving mathematical word problems. Its aim was to determine the factors that led to difficulties a learner encountered in the process of solving mathematical word problems. The study objectives were to determine the effects of students’ comprehension skills, interpretation of operational terms and student writing of mathematical expressions in solving mathematics word problems. The study adopted was guided by constructivist’s theory of learning and quantitative research design. The target population was form three mathematics students and teachers. Stratified random sampling techniques were employed to select nine public secondary schools; one boys’ school, one girls’ school and eight mixed secondary schools from a population of thirty-three public secondary schools. Simple random sampling was used in picking folded yes/no papers to select one hundred and thirty five (135) form three students and ten (10) mathematics teachers were purposively sampled. A pilot study was conducted to test the reliability of the data collection instruments. Questionnaires, achievement test items were used to collect data. The data collected was coded and analyzed using the SPSS version 20. The study revealed that students had difficulties in comprehending mathematical word problems, interpreting operational terms used in the word problems and writing mathematical expressions from word problems. From these findings, it was concluded that the poor comprehension of word problems, misinterpretation of operational terms and inability to write mathematical expressions led to student difficulties in solving word problems in mathematics. The study made the following recommendations that the teachers should find ways of ways of improving comprehension skills of the students and a special room for teaching resources in mathematics should be set aside to enrich the course.