The effect of metacognitive strategy scaffolding on student achievement in solving complex math word problems

Despite recommendations from NCTM and NAEP to reform mathematics instruction, students in the United States still fall behind international counterparts. U.S. students can compute algorithms, but perform poorly when problems necessitate the higher-order thinking required to solve complex word problems. This dissertation investigated the effects of metacognitive strategy scaffolding on students' ability to solve complex word problems. Participants were three classes of community college students in remedial math. This research investigated two instructional interventions designed to promote metacognitive activities in remedial math students. The first was the Jasper Series, which presents, via videotape, a complex mathematical challenge for students to solve. The second intervention was a Guided Self-questioning (GSQ) schema developed by this researcher for students to use when solving word problems. The GSQ schema scaffolds the students through a series of six questions. The students are asked to: (1) restate the problem, (2) clarify the information given, (3) depict the story, (4) predict a range for the answer, (5) solve, and (6) evaluate their answer. The primary goal of both interventions was to enhance students' success in problem solving by helping them become more strategic thinkers, and thereby better able to solve complex word problems. Both interventions incorporated the self-regulatory aspects of metacognition, were situated in a cooperative learning environment, and aimed at helping students function more like expert mathematicians. After the ten sessions, the results of the post-intervention test of complex word problems indicated that the Guided Self-questioning schema was more successful in increasing student achievement than the Jasper Series. Both intervention classes outperformed the control class. The results, examined by both descriptive and inferential (ANOVA, ANCOVA, correlation and multiple regression) analyses, exhibited significant main effect for class group. Effects attributable to gender, ethnicity, age, and the number of years since the students' last math class had a negligible effect on student achievement. The Guided Self-questioning schema helped the students become more strategic, reflective, and active thinkers when they solved complex word problems. It was concluded that students can be scaffolded to become more metacognitive, and thereby, better problem solvers.