An analysis of elementary school students' difficulties in mathematical problem solving

The main purpose of mathematics teaching is to enable students to solve problems in daily life. Unfortunately, according to the latest national test results, most students lack mathematical problem solving skills. This proves to be one of the reasons why overall achievement in mathematics is considered quite low. It also reflects that students have difficulties in comprehending mathematical problems affecting the process of problem-solving. Therefore, in order to allow teachers to establish a proper teaching plan suitable for students' learning process, this research aims to analyze the difficulties in mathematical problem solving among elementary school students. Samples are divided into two groups, elementary school students and mathematics teachers. Data collection was conducted by structured interview, documentary analysis, and survey tests. Data analysis was conducted by descriptive statistics, and content analysis. The results suggest that there are several difficulties in problem solving, namely 1) Students have difficulties in understanding the keywords appearing in problems, thus cannot interpret them in mathematical sentences. 2) Students are unable to figure out what to assume and what information from the problem is necessary to solving it, 3) Whenever students do not understand the problem, they tend to guess the answer without any thinking process, 4) Students are impatient and do not like to read mathematical problems, and 5) Students do not like to read long problems. Therefore, the results found in this research will lead to the creation and the development of mathematical problem solving diagnostic tests for teachers, in order to improve students' mathematical problem solving skills. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.