Abstract
From the perspective of mathematics education, story problems represent a rather low-level, but important, type of problem solving. Unfortunately, there is little doubt that many people have strong negative feelings about story problems. Anecdotal evidence abounds (“I like math, except for story problems”), and is strengthened by an occasional study. Dutton and Blum (1968), for example, found that the statement “Word problems are frustrating” was one of the more commonly agreed-with statements among 346 students in Grades 6 through 8. It is sobering that even preservice teachers may share such negative feelings; 46% of Smith’s (1964) 123 preservice elementary teachers chose the statement “I am afraid of doing word problems” as representative of their feelings.
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Sowder, L. (1989). Searching for Affect in the Solution of Story Problems in Mathematics. In: McLeod, D.B., Adams, V.M. (eds) Affect and Mathematical Problem Solving. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3614-6_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3614-6_8
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