Solving word problems: More than reading issues for deaf students

Deaf and hearing college students were given 30 mathematics problems to sol ve. The initial 15 were presented as numeric/graphic problems, followed by 15 corresponding word problems, with both conditions sequenced for a progre ssive increase in problem complexity. Each word problem described the kind of shape and measurement information that was presented in its correspondin g numeric/graphic problem. The results showed that the deaf college student s, regardless of reading level, were comparable in performance to the heari ng college students when solving the numeric/graphic problems and the initi al, least complex set of corresponding word problems. However, as the compl exity of the descriptive information in the word problems increased along w ith the complexity of the problem situations, the performance scores of the deaf students decreased. No comparable decrease was observed in the hearin g students' scores. While reading ability level was associated with the dea f students' lower scores when solving word problems, the analyses show that other factors also contributed.