The Influence of Mathematical Language on Students’ Ability to Solve Problems in Junior Schools within Cheptiret in Kenya

Abstract

In Kenya, performance in mathematics by primary school learners continues to be an issue especially in word problem solving. Though competence may be exhibited in computational tasks, most learners tend to show challenges in mathematical problems that are represented in linguistics form. Mathematical language comprising of vocabulary, syntax, symbolic representation and contextual definition is very important in helping the learners to comprehend and solve these problems. Nonetheless, there is little empirical evidence regarding the predictive power of mathematical language on the problem-solving capabilities among primary school students in the Uasin-Gishu County (Biwott, 2022). This paper has discussed how mathematics language has affected the capability of Class Seven learners in Cheptiret Zone to solve mathematical word problems. The adopted design was a descriptive correlational survey design. A sample of 388 learners and 15 mathematical educators out of a population of 1 292 learners result was selected (Biwott, 2022). Learners gathered the data through their questionnaires, in form of structured word problem-solving exercises and teacher questionnaires in addition to interview schedules. Simple linear regression, Pearson correlation, and descriptive statistics were used to analyze quantitative data, and simple linear regression, Pearson correlation, and simple linear regression on the same, whereas thematic analysis of qualitative data on teacher interviews was performed. The findings showed that the relationship between mathematical language competence and problem-solving capacity is statistically significant (r =.62, p=0.05). Regression analysis also showed that math language was an important predictor of the performance of learners in the word problem solving (=0.58, p <.001), which predicted about 38 percent of variance in the scores of learners. These findings were backed up by the qualitative finding of teacher interviews, which also indicated the problems of learners with the interpretation of mathematical vocabulary or word problems into mathematical expressions. The paper finds that language proficiency in mathematics is also a central issue in determining the success of learners in mathematical word problems. The research thus prescribes incorporation of systematical vocabulary training and language supportive instruction in math classes so as to promote problem solving skills among the learners.