The Differences Between The Arts And Science Students In Solving The Fundamental Problems Of Inequality

This article explores the concrete differences in meta-cognition,problem presentation,the strategy and the expanding of thinking of the arts and science students in the process of their solving the mathematical problems of inequality. The author applies such research methods as the questionnaire survey, the protocol analysis,interview and so on. In which the author has found out some results as follows:1. Meta-cognition is one of the important factors in solving the problem of inequality. The research manifests that the arts and science students in meta-cognition have their differences mainly in their knowledge ,consciousness,monitoring and assessment,while not obvious in their planning and regulating.2. The arts and science students have differences in the level of the problem representation: the level of the problem representation of the arts students is mainly based on the external representation of surface texture, while the level of the science students exists in the intermediate state from the surface texture representation to the in-depth structure representation, yet has not achieved the integrated representation level on the in-depth structure. 3. As to the proof of the inequality, the arts and science students have actually both mastered the basic proof methods. But when they encounter some specific issues, there will emerge remarkable differences in their expanding of thinking and their ability of knowledge transfer. These differences are caused by the differences in their construction degree of the cognitive knowledge.4. The sciences students apply the strategy of pattern recognition driven by concepts and character in solving the comprehensive problem of inequality, and the arts students tend to apply the strategy of mechanical memory driven by key words and important numerical values.