Teachers' classroom practices in addressing learners' errors in algebraic word problems

Stephen Mubanga

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2021
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783346508676
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

Master's Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Pedagogy - School Pedagogics, University of Zambia (Postgraduate studies), course: Master of Mathematics Education, language: English, abstract: The study explored teachers' classroom practices in addressing learners' errors regarding how they engaged grade eight learners in reading; how they probed learners' understanding; and what they did to enhance learners' process skills and encoding abilities in algebraic word problems. Five teachers and twenty five learners (in five focus groups discussions of five members each), at three secondary schools in Isoka district of Muchinga province, Zambia were purposively sampled to participate in the study. The study used a qualitative approach which followed a descriptive case study design. Data collection was done using lesson observations, semi-structured interviews, document analysis and focus group discussions. To capture observations and interviews in totality, video and audio recordings were used respectively. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data. The five performance strategies of solving word problems by Newman namely; reading ability, comprehension ability, transformation ability, process skills and encoding ability guided the analysis of data. The study was guided by the following research questions: How do teachers engage learners in reading algebraic word problems? How do teachers probe learners' understanding of algebraic word problems? What do teachers do to enhance learners' process skills and encoding abilities in algebraic word problems?