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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Problem Solving Skills of Secondary School Students
Author(s)
Belgin Bal İncebacak, Esen Ersoy
Full-Text PDF
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DOI:10.17265/1537-1514/2016.06.002
Affiliation(s)
Belgin Bal İncebacak, research assistant, Faculty of Education, Department of Primary Mathematics Education, Ondokuz Mayis University, Samsun, Turkey.
Esen Ersoy, Ph.D., assistant professor, Faculty of Education, Department of Primary Mathematics Education, Ondokuz Mayis University, Samsun, Turkey.
ABSTRACT
A problem is a situation, in which a person tries to find a solution and does not exactly know how but still tries to solve it. One of the important elements of problem solving skills that individuals should have is to choose the appropriate strategy in the solution of the problems, which is important in terms of achieving success in solving problems. The research question of the study is “what are the levels of sixth and seventh grade students’ problem solving skills?” The aim of this study was to investigate the problem solving and problem-solving strategies levels of secondary school students. The study was carried out through method with a total of 72 students from the two provinces in the Black Sea region of Turkey selected by random in the second term of the 2014-2015 academic year. In this qualitative research for the case study, content analysis was applied. The study group consists of 50 students in Samsun province and 22 students in Sinop province in the Blacksea region, 35 of the students are females, whereas 37 of them are male students. The methodology of the study is case study method, which is in accordance with the nature of qualitative research. In this qualitative research for the case study, content analysis was applied in order to evaluate the data. In the study, five creative problems developed by Smith, which were adapted into Turkish by the researchers, were used as the data collection tools. The problems applied were evaluated according to Polya’s stage of problem solving. The problems were evaluated according to stages such as understanding the problem, choosing a strategy, applying the chosen strategy, and evaluating the solution. While examining students’ problem solving papers, it was observed that they were more successful at solving problems, with which they came across before or are similar to the ones they had solved. It was observed that majority of the students had difficulty in solving non-routine problems. It is believed that this results from the fact that mostly routine problems are discussed and solved in the curricula.
KEYWORDS
mathematics, problem, problem solving, problem solving stages, secondary school, Polya
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