Working Memory, The Impact Of Metacognition On Students Geometric Problems To Solve

Psychologists have carried on massive theoretic discussions and experimental researches revolved on the effects of working memory and metacognition on mathematic problem solving, and have accumulated a lot of valuable materials. However, the mathematic problems concerned by previous researches are mostly about algebra and it is relatively rare to discuss the effects of working memory and metacognition on geometric problem solving. Geometry is an important mathematic subject and geometric word-problem is a kind of important topics in geometry. It needs to confirm whether working memory and metacognition also have influence on geometric word-problem solving. It is also a controversial topic whether exists gender difference in mathematic problem solving.130 students were selected from grade 3 of a junior high school as the participants of this research. Field experiment and clinical interviews were employed to examine the effects of working memory, metacognition and gender on geometric word-problem solving.The main findings of the whole research were as follows:1. The effects of working memory capacity were significant in mid-difficult and difficult geometric word-problem solving. The significant differences explained that the higher capacity, the better geometric word-problem solving performance; the lower capacity, the worse performance. There was no significant difference in simple geometric word-problem solving.2. The effects of metacognition were significant in the three kinds of geometric word-problem solving. The significant differences explained that the higher metacognition, the better geometric word-problem solving performance; the lower metacognition, the worse performance.3. The effects of gender were significant in mid-difficult and difficult geometric word-problem solving. The significant differences explained that male had better geometric word-problem solving performance than female .There was no significant difference in simple geometric word-problem solving.4. Working memory capacity, metacognition and gender had no significant interaction in the three kinds of geometric word-problem solving.