ASSESSMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN TRANSLATING WORD PROBLEMS INTO ALGEBRAIC EQUATIONS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the difficulties
secondary school students encounter in translating algebraic
word problems into algebraic equations. This study was
conducted at Nsukka Local Government Area, Enugu State,
Nigeria. A survey research approach was employed in this study.
Two research questions were answered and one hypothesis was
tested in this study. The sample was 140 participants, selected
using stratified proportionate random sampling approach. The
data gathering tool was an essay test constructed by the
researcher and entitled ‘Algebraic Word Problem Test (AWPT)’.
The AWPT was validated by experts after which the inter-rater
reliability was determined using Kendall’s correlation of
concordance (W) which yielded reliability index of 0.81. The
findings indicated that students did not encounter difficult in
representing unknown variables with letters. However, students
had difficulties in: (i) generating linear algebraic terms, (ii)
creating linear algebraic expressions, (iii) equating two
algebraic expressions to obtained the require equations, (iv) in
generating the two distinct simultaneous equations as required
by the questions, (v) creating quadratic terms, (vi) generating
quadratic algebraic expressions, and (vii) creating and writing
the final quadratic equation. Gender had no influence on
difficulties encountered by students in translating word problems
to equations. Recommendations were made in light of the
findings.