Students' Mathematics Problem Solving Difficulties and Coping and Strategies: A Model Building Study

Abstract

Problems, difficulties and pressures abound everywhere. In Mathematics, much has been said and heard of students struggling with problem solving. This study therefore primarily aimed to develop models that could address the problem solving difficulties of students through their coping strategies. Specifically, it aimed to determine the students’ strategies in coping with their difficulties along the four phases of problem solving namely: understanding the problem (UP), devising a plan (DP), carrying out the plan (CP) and looking back (LB) according to a) sex b) academic programs namely:

The study employed a case-study-design approach. The respondents of the study involved thirteen classes with 425 college freshmen who were enrolled during the first semester of SY 2018-2019. Two hundred ninety-seven of them composed the model development group while 128 respondents composed the validation group.

Results of the problem solving test revealed the following difficulties of the respondents: a) inability to distinguish the known from the unknown information and inability to identify the type of problem and recall basic concepts in the UP phase, b) inability to transform a problem into a mathematical equation and inability to draw tables/charts out of the information and organize information and connect to a concept in the DP phase, c) inability to completely perform the working procedure systematically and accurately and inability to start with the computational process in the CP phase, and d) inability to complete the checking procedure and inability to start the evaluation of the correctness of the obtained solution in the LB phase.

Moreover, the study revealed that the looking back (LB) phase has the most encountered difficulty, followed by the carrying out the plan (CP) phase. There were more females who encountered the above mentioned difficulties in all phases of problem solving than males. The respondents were likewise grouped into two: STEM-related academic programs and the non-STEM-related academic programs. The study found out that the majority of the male respondents from the STEM-related academics programs encountered the observed difficulties in all phases of problem solving.

The coping strategy questionnaire on the other hand elicited responses from the students on how they deal with their difficulties in each phase of problem solving. Forty-three strategies emerged and were grouped into two: 32 Problem-focused and 11 emotion-focused coping strategies. Association of the two variables let to the development of the two models: Coping strategies by sex by model and coping strategies by academic program by phase. Validation of the two models revealed that they can address the mathematics problem solving difficulties of the students through coping strategies.

The study therefore recommends that teachers should focus on the phases where students find struggling during a problem solving scenario. They need to provide the students with activities and tasks that are real-life problems that require them to understand, compute and check their solutions so that they may be able to discover their own learning. It is also recommended that an assessment identifying the problem solving difficulties of students be administered at the beginning of the semester so that appropriate strategies will be implemented by the mathematics teachers. Lastly, another study underscoring an added variable like the track/strand which the student enrolled during his/her senior high school may be conducted.