A longitudinal study of effects of learning strategies and transfer which help children understand and solve word problems

本课题的主要研究成果如下：(1)我们发现学生在解决比率应用题时使用了不同的学习策略。当学生通过生成图表作为学习策略来解决比率应用题时，他们比使用其他学习策略解决困难的比率应用题的学生更多地解决困难的比率应用题。(2)当我们考察了计算机图表在一年时间里解决两类应用题和迁移测试问题的效果时，经过计算机生成图表培训的五年级学生在一年的时间里在解决比率应用题上优于其他组的学生。(3)训练组的五年级学生在迁移测试中的成绩与其他组的学生一样好。

The main research results of our project were as follows :(1) We showed that students use a variety of learning strategies when they solve ratio word problems. When students solved ratio word problems by generating diagrams as a learning strategy, they solved difficult ratio word problems more than the students who solved them using other learning strategies.(2) When we examined effects of computer-based diagrams on solving two types of word problems and transfer test problems over a one-year period, fifth-grade students who had been trained to generate diagrams via a computer outperformed students in the other groups on solving ratio word problems over a one-year period.(3) Fifth grade students in the training group solved the transfer test problems as well as students in the other groups.