Abi. Bernardo et L. Okagaki, ROLES OF SYMBOLIC KNOWLEDGE AND PROBLEM INFORMATION CONTEXT IN SOLVING WORD-PROBLEMS, Journal of educational psychology, 86(2), 1994, pp. 212-220
In 4 experiments, the effects of symbolic knowledge (i.e., knowledge a
bout the meaning of mathematical notation) and problem-information con
text (PIC) on translating relational statements (e.g., ''There are 6 t
imes as many students as professors'') into math equations were examin
ed. College students were more likely to construct correct equations w
hen symbolic knowledge was presented than they were when they only rec
eived a single relational statement. Ss who received a PIC that more c
losely resembled a complete word problem did better on the equation-wr
iting task than did those who only received a relational statement. Re
sults indicated that the effects of the two factors are not separate.
When Ss had the appropriate PIC, performance on the equation-writing t
ask was enhanced because Ss' own memory representations for symbolic k
nowledge were more accessible. Contextual constraints in the access an
d use of knowledge in problem solving are discussed.