Error analysis and the corresponding cognitive activities committed by year five primary students in solving mathematical word problems

The purpose of this study was to identify errors and the corresponding cognitive activities committed by the 374 year five primary school students in solving the mathematical word problems for the 'Fraction' topic. The design of this study used Newman Error Analysis method and interviews. The findings showed that 52.91% of the errors made were due to lack of understanding, followed by transformation skills (22.37%), process skills (15.55%), encoding (8.84%) and reading (0.34 Based on these findings, the researchers proposed that teachers should ask students explicitly what problems they have in solving the mathematical word problems, observe students reactions and analyze errors committed by them. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.