Investigation of 7th Grade Students' Awareness of Verbal Problems with Missing Information or Excess Information

Abstract

When the skills of mathematics education curriculum are considered, problem solving skill has an important place. In the development of students' problem solving skills, students need to examine and analyze the structure of the problem at the problem understanding stage. Encountering different types of problems with missing information and excess information will support students' ability to express their own thoughts and communicate mathematically. In addition, such problems provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their reasoning and creative thinking skills. The aim of this study is to examine 7th grade students' awareness of verbal problems with missing information or excess information. Case study method was used in the study. The sample of this study consists of 15 7th grade students studying in a public secondary school in Şanlıurfa province in Turkey. The students were selected by purposive sampling method and interviewed. A form consisting of a total of 6 problems, three of which contain missing information and three of which contain too much information, was used as a data collection tool. The data obtained were analyzed and interpreted descriptively. As a result of the study, it was seen that the students tended to solve the problem directly without determining what was given and what was required. This situation made it difficult for them to recognize missing and excessive information in the question. It was observed that they did not think about the problem, did not examine the data in the problem and were result-oriented. It was observed that the majority of the students had difficulty in recognizing verbal problems with missing information, but they were more successful in recognizing verbal problems with excess information. Since it is common to think that students have enough information to solve problems, it should be ensured that problems with missing and excess information are given in mathematics teaching and that they think comprehensively while examining the problems.