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- Dyrvold, Anneli, 1970-
(författare)
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Difficult to read or difficult to solve? : The role of natural language and other semiotic resources in mathematics tasks
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- When students solve mathematics tasks, the tasks are commonly given as written text, usually consisting of natural language, mathematical notation and different types of images. This is one reason why reading and interpreting such texts are important parts of being mathematically proficient, at least within the school context. The ability utilized when dealing with aspects of mathematical text is denoted in this thesis as a mathematical reading ability; this ability is useful when reading mathematical language, for example, in task text. There is, however, a lack of knowledge of what characterizes this mathematical language, what students need to learn regarding the mathematical language, and exactly which mathematical language that tests should preferably assess. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge of aspects of difficulty related to textual features in mathematics tasks. In particular, one aim is to distinguish between a difficulty that has to do with a mathematical ability and another that has not. Different types of text analyses are utilized to capture textural features that might be demanding for the students when reading and solving mathematics tasks. Aspects regarding vocabulary are investigated both in a literature review and in a study where corpora are used to analyse word commonness. Other textual analyses focus on textual features that concern mathematical notation and images, besides natural language. Statistical methods are used to analyse potential relations between the textual features of interest and both task difficulty and task demand on reading ability. The results from the research review are sparse regarding difficult vocabulary, since few of the reviewed studies analyses word aspects separately. Several of the analysed textual features are related to aspects of difficulty. The results show that tasks with more words that are uncommon both in a mathematical context and in an everyday context, may favour students with good reading ability rather than students with good mathematical ability. Another textual feature that is likely to be demanding for students, is if the task texts contains many meaning relations, for example, when several words refer to the same or similar object. These results have implications for the school practice both regarding textual features that are important from an educational perspective and regarding the construction of tests. The research does also contribute to an understanding of what characterizes a mathematical language.
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| 2. |
- Dyrvold, Anneli, 1970-
(författare)
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Ett ramverk för att analysera matematiktexter medavseende på relationer mellan textens delar : [A framework for mathematics task text analysis – focusing on cohesion between natural language, mathematical notation, and images]
- 2016
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Ingår i: ICT in mathematics education: the future and the realities. - Karlstad : Svensk förening för MatematikDidaktisk Forskning - SMDF. - 9789198402407 ; , s. 150-150
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In order to understand more about difficulties related to the reading of mathematics text it is important to understand the role different features of the tasktext plays in the interpretation of the text. The proposed framework enables ananalysis of particular textual features that make a text stick together, namelycohesive features. The framework is based on theory for cohesion and hasbeen developed to catch important features of a mathematics text. Nine different types of cohesive relations are defined; these relations exist both withinnatural language, and between natural language and other semiotic resources.The framework has been developed to enable reliable coding of a substantialamount of text for the purpose of statistical analyses.
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| 3. |
- Dyrvold, Anneli, 1970-
(författare)
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The role of semiotic resources when reading and solving mathematics tasks
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nordisk matematikkdidaktikk, NOMAD. - Gothenburg : Nationellt centrum för matematikutbildning (NCM). - 1104-2176. ; 21:3, s. 51-72
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- One part of being proficient in mathematics is to be able to read and solve mathematics tasks where mathematics is represented using different semiotic resources (i.e. natural language, mathematical notation, and different types of images). In the current study, statistical methods are used to investigate the potential meaning that the presence and co-occurrences of semiotic resources have for how demanding a mathematical task is to read and solve. The results reveal that the number of different semiotic resources in a mathematical task is not related to difficulty, but that difficulty is related to the particular combinations of semiotic resources where pictorial images are one of the resources. The results also indicate that the difficulty related to these semiotic characteristics is not related to an unnecessary reading demand.
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| 4. |
- Dyrvold, Anneli, 1970-
(författare)
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Which textual features are difficult when reading and solving mathematical tasks? : Questions of Theme and Rheme
- 2016
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 40th Conference of the International Group for the psychology of Mathematics Education. - : International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. - 9781365455063 ; , s. 150-150
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this study a combination of statistical and qualitative methods are used to explore the potential role the presence of, and interaction between, different semiotic resources have for how difficult mathematics tasks are to read and solve. The semiotic resources of interest are natural language, mathematical notation, and different types of images. Two different dependent variables are used: one that explains a general task difficulty and one that explains the tasks demand on a general reading ability. T-tests have revealed that tasks with four particular combinations of semiotic resources are solved to a significantly lower frequency than other tasks. Moreover, chi-square tests reveal that the same tasks are overrepresented in the group of tasks for which a general reading ability is not beneficial to use in the solving process. The results of those statistical tests do however only contribute an understanding of what presence of and cooccurrences of particular semiotic resources mean for the reading and solving of mathematics tasks.The second step in this study is therefore a qualitative analysis of a few tasks from two particular groups of tasks identified in the statistical analyses, namely i) tasks that are more difficult to solve and for which a general reading ability is not beneficial to use, and ii) tasks for which a general reading ability is highly beneficial to use in the solving process. The purpose of the qualitative analysis is to explore relations within and between the semiotic resources in tasks that are identified as extremes in the statistical tests (the ones mentioned above). Therefore the method for the qualitative analyses is based on theory about texture (Liu & O'Halloran, 2009) and Kress’ concepts translation and transduction (Kress, 2010). The results will contribute to an understanding of the role that multisemiotic features in task text have for aspects of task difficulty.
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