Middle school students' perceptions, persistence, and performance in mathematical problem solving

The purpose of this study was to explore middle school students' (N = 54) p erceptions of problem difficulty, persistence, and knowledge and use of pro blem-solving strategies in solving mathematical word problems. Students ide ntified as learning disabled, average achieving, or gifted were tested indi vidually as they solved six word problems classified as 1-, 2-, or 3-step p roblems. After the examiner read each problem, the student rated the proble m's difficulty on a 1-to-6 scale (very easy to very hard) and then solved t he problem. Results indicated that students with learning disabilities rate d problems as significantly more difficult and had a significantly lower to tal word problem score than both average and gifted students. In comparison , average students rated problems as significantly more difficult than gift ed students but did not differ significantly on total word problem score. T here was no significant difference between students with learning disabilit ies and average achievers in the length of time they spent solving problems , but both groups took significantly longer than the gifted students. Stude nts with learning disabilities used significantly fewer problem-solving str ategies on the two- and three-step problems than both the average and the g ifted students, who did not differ. Findings suggest that although students with learning disabilities perceive problems as more difficult than do the ir more successful peers, they do not spend more time solving problems. Eve n with greater persistence, however, they would still be at a serious disad vantage compared with better problem solvers because they seem to lack impo rtant problem-solving strategies for effective and efficient mathematical p roblem solving.