The Relationship Between Students’ Metacognitive Awareness and their Solutions to Similar Types of Mathematical Problems

Zehra Nur Ersözlü,Sevda Yıldırım

doi:10.12973/eurasia.2013.946a

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between the metacognitive awareness of university students and their solutions to the similar mathematical problem types. Participants were 97 freshmen from department of mathematics at a state university in Turkey. Two different scales were used for data collection: “Metacognitive Awareness Inventory” and “Mathematical Problem Types Test’’. The results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the students’ metacognitive awareness levels and their problem solving levels regarding routine and non-routine problems. There was no significant linear correlation between university students’ metacognitive awareness levels and their problem solving levels for “separation”, “combining”, and “multiplication” in routine problems. Multiple regression analysis was used to test if the metacognitive awareness significantly predicted participants’ levels of problem solving. The results of the regression indicated that metacognitive awareness significantly predicted problem solving levels and both predictors explained 45% of the total variance.

Highlights

Problem solving ability in mathematics education is the point where knowledge, thinking ability and daily life come together
It could be accepted that the relation between levels of metacognitive awareness and solving mathematical problem types was at a high level
The fact that there is a near-high relationship between metacognitive awareness and solving mathematical problem types indicates that the level of solving both routine and nonroutine mathematical problems increases as the level of metacognitive awareness increases

Summary

Introduction

Problem solving ability in mathematics education is the point where knowledge, thinking ability and daily life come together. Due to this fact, problem solving has been emphasized in mathematics curricula in many countries since the 1980s. The problem types are generally classified in terms of the skill, the way of thinking and the effort they require for their solutions. According to this classification, problems are divided into two broad categories: routine and non-routine problems.

Methods

Results

Conclusion