Effect of Students ‘comprehension skills on solving mathematical word problems

Abstract

Mathematical word problems are concepts taught at the end of every topic to allow students apply the content that was taught. This paper looks at the effect of students’ comprehension skills on solving mathematic word problems in Tindiret Sub County public secondary schools, Kenya. The target population was form three mathematics students and teachers. Stratified random sampling techniques were employed to select nine public secondary schools; one boys’ school, one girls’ school and eight mixed secondary schools. Questionnaires, achievement test items were used to collect data. The data collected was coded and analyzed using the SPSS. The study revealed that students had difficulties in (1) comprehending mathematical word problems. It was concluded that the poor comprehension of word problems led to student difficulties in solving word problems in mathematics. The paper recommends that the teachers should find ways of ways of improving comprehension skills of the students by having activities like debates and public speaking to improve language mastery and comprehension.