Which One Is the “Best”: a Cross-national Comparative Study of Students’ Strategy Evaluation in Equation Solving
Journal article, 2023

This cross-national study examined students’ evaluation of strategies for solving linear equations, as well as the extent to which their evaluation criteria were related to their use of strategies and/or aligned with experts’ views about which strategy is the best. A total of 792 middle school and high school students from Sweden, Finland, and Spain participated in the study. Students were asked to solve twelve equations, provide multiple solving strategies for each equation, and select the best strategy among those they produced for each equation. Our results indicate that students’ evaluation of strategies was not strongly related to their initial preferences for using strategies. Instead, many students’ criteria were aligned with the flexibility goals, in that a strategy that takes advantages of task context was more highly valued than a standard algorithm. However, cross-national differences in strategy evaluation indicated that Swedish and Finnish students were more aligned with flexibility goals in terms of their strategy evaluation criteria, while Spanish students tended to consider standard algorithms better than other strategies. We also found that high school students showed more flexibility concerns than middle school students. Different emphases in educational practice and prior knowledge might explain these cross-national differences as well as the findings of developmental changes in students’ evaluation criteria.

flexibility

equation solving

cross-national study

algebra education

strategy evaluation

algebra

Author

Ronghuan Jiang

Shenzhen University

Jon R. Star

Harvard University

Peter Hästö

University of Oulu

Lijia Li

Harvard University

Ru-De Liu

Beijing Normal University

Dimitri Tuomela

University of Oulu

Nuria Joglar Prieto

Complutense University

Riikka Palkki

University of Oulu

Miguel Abánades

Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC)

Johanna Pejlare

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Algebra and geometry

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education

1571-0068 (ISSN) 15731774 (eISSN)

Vol. 21 4 1127-1151

Subject Categories

Didactics

Other Mathematics

Learning and teaching

Pedagogical work

DOI

10.1007/s10763-022-10282-6

Related datasets

Procedural flexibility in mathematics in three countries [dataset]

DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/KWQDB

More information

Latest update

3/21/2023