The role of essential illustrations in a design experiment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31074/gyntf.2025.1.5.19Keywords:
essential illustration, design experiment, word problem, problemsolving, elementary schoolAbstract
The study reports the results of a developmental experiment conducted in the third grade of a suburban primary school in Budapest. The aim of this research was to help students to with the text of mathematical problems involving essential (Berends & Van Lieshout, 2009) figures. Students had to carry out 12 pairs of tasks containing of which design is considered to be essential for successful problem solving. We hypothesized that pupils participating in the experiment would be better able to solve this type of mathematical problem and that there would be an increase in the percentage of realistic answers to realistic (Verschaffel, 2009) textual problems. Our results suggest a tendency for the test group to increase the percentage of realistic responses to realistic text tasks, and a significant improvement was also observed in a PISA task. The results of the study can be used as a resource for in-service teachers in the field of mathematics education and problem solving.
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