2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Analysis and support of knowledge construction to facilitate children's mathematical problem solving and transfer abilities
| Project/Area Number |
15330141
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Educational psychology
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| Research Institution | Aichi University of Education |
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Principal Investigator |
NAKATSU Narao Aichi University of Education, Faculty of Education, Professor, 教育学部, 教授 (90133131)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
TAJIKA Hidemitsu Aichi University of Education, Faculty of Education, Professor, 教育学部, 教授 (30109368)
TAKEUCHI Yoshiaki Aichi University of Education, Faculty of Education, Professor, 教育学部, 教授 (40216867)
NOZAKI Hironari Aichi University of Education, Faculty of Education, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (80275148)
ISHIDA Yasuhiko Aichi University of Education, Faculty of Education, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (10314064)
SAITO Hitomi Aichi University of Education, Faculty of Education, Assistant Professor, 教育学部, 助手 (00378233)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2005
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| Keywords | mathematical problem solving / knowledge transfer / self-explanation / sixth-grade children / computer tutor / matacognition / knowledge construction |
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| Research Abstract |
We have two goals of the present study. First, we want to analyze knowledge construction that facilitates mathematical problem-solving and transfer of sixth-grade children. Second, we want to develop a computer tutor on the basis of the above results and to help children improve their problem solving and transfer.
We conducted the survey study that was planned to examine metacognitive strategy factors in the problem solving processes. We found three types of metacognitive strategy factors. They were factors relating to selecting appropriate information from tasks, relating to monitoring problem solving, and relating to understanding problems.
Then, we focused on one of metacognitive strategies known as self-explanation. We had three similar experiments using self-explanation. Participants of the experiments were sixth-grade children. They were assigned to one of three groups, the self-explanation group, the self-learning group, or the control group. Children in the self-explanation group
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were asked to self-explain each solution step. Children in the self-learning group were asked to learn each step by themselves after a teacher had explained each solution step. Children in the control group were given the numerical expressions and the answers for the problems. A teacher explained about how to solve the problems including numerical expressions and the answers and then instructed children to understand how to solve them. The results of three experiments showed that children in self-explanation group outperformed both children in the self-learning group and the control group on the word problem test and the transfer test. Moreover, high explainers who generated more explanations and more fine-grained explanations outperformed low explainers. We interpreted these results as follows. By engaging in self-explanations during solving worked-out examples, sixth-grade children have to concentrate on both what they can understand and what they can not understand. Then, they draw inferences to repair incomplete understanding of the mathematical word problems. The self-explanation seems to improve mathematical problem solving and transfer by supporting the construction of problem representation according to children's prior knowledge during solving problems.
To achieve our second goal, we developed the computer tutor designed to improve learning from worked-out examples by supporting self-explanation. The computer tutor we had developed is innovative in one way. It represents the first attempt to provide computer support to a metacognitive strategy known as self-explanation for elementary school children. In the current study, we are now conducting the experiment how the computer tutor as a computer-based self-explanation system can help sixth-grade children solve mathematical word problems and transfer problems. Less
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Research Products
(16 results)
