Difficulty level of arithmetic word problems in Singaporean and Spanish textbooks
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35763/aiem22.4412Keywords:
Word problems (mathematics)Arithmetic, Textbook content, Task difficulty, Primary EducationAbstract
According to TIMSS-2019 (INEE, 2020), Singaporean students are able to solve more difficult word problems than Spanish students. Since in both countries textbooks are the main resource used by most teachers to teach their students to solve problems, it is possible that there are some differences in the semantic-mathematical difficulty of arithmetic word problems presented in Singaporean and Spanish textbooks. For this reason, a quantitative comparison of the level of semantic-mathematical difficulty of the problems in books from the Spanish publisher Santillana and the leading Singaporean publisher (Marshall Cavendish) was carried out. The Singaporean books contained more difficult problems than the Spanish ones, although in all books most of the problems were easy. The differences found could reflect some differences in the curricula of Singapore and Spain.
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