A study of situated cognition for third- and fourth-grade students doing math word problems

In its modelling of the cognitively active individual, traditional cognitive theory has not considered the significance of context and personal interpretation on the dynamic of cognition for individuals as they go about their daily business. Suchman (1990, p. viii) argues that overt activity cannot always be considered purely in terms of mental processing. Such actions, she states, are inevitably "situated actions" that become formulated as part of "the context of particular, concrete circumstances." The research of cognitive anthropologists, such as Jean Lave and Sylvia Scribner, present substantial evidence that thinking is a phenomenon intimately related to a personal definition of context. This cognitive relationship between individual and context has come to be known as "situated cognition." Researchers within the field of cognitive psychology are challenged to go beyond experimental laboratory conditions to study the thinking individual in action, using non-experimental methodologies (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989; Lave, 1989; Scribner, 1984; Suchman, 1990).;A theory of situated cognition raises the question of how the context of the classroom as an arena of activity for students "creates the content" of what students come to learn. This study examines the situated cognitive activity of third and fourth grade students as they work to solve math word problems. Central to the study is the question of similarity and difference between individual students as "thinkers in action," given the same particulars of context. A secondary focus is whether teachers of the students in the study model their students as situated thinkers.;The study concludes that students in the classroom are situated thinkers as they engage in classroom activity. As arenas for thinking, the contexts defined by word problems in this study did not serve to establish the boundaries of a working context for students. Students defined meaning and relevance for word problems in relation to how such information influenced their personal activity as students in their classroom context. Teachers in the study also recognized the situated nature of students' learning activity.