The characteristics of mathematical word problems at the middle school and suggested strategies to facilitae their solution process

This paper، first it has reviewed the literature on the characteristics of mathematical word problems and their solution process. The review revealed that among the root causes for students’ difficulties with mathematical word problems، two factors are salient، namely; the text complexity and the unfamiliar context. To shed more light on these findings، a factorial experimental study was designed with 80 grade 7 students from a school in middle class residents. These students were randomly put into the four groups of 20 each; two as experimental and two as control group. Four tests were administered as pre-tests and post- tests to compare the students regarding their problem solving skills with the intervention of two kinds of rewording; familiarization and personalization. The major finding of this study is that the rewording per se has meaningful effect on students’ understanding and solving of word problem.