Do problems with practical examples help students learn math well?

Scientists have a different perspective on how to learn math and have discovered some interesting things.

At some point, we learned some form of math formulas related to trains and their running schedules. For example, if a ship leaves Boston for New York at 7am and goes at a speed of 60 mph, will it pass the Providence train at 6am at 45 mph?

The idea behind this 'story' problem is to encourage students with a real-life example that they can relate to and this will reinforce mathematical concepts. It was one of those thoughts that seemed to be when mathematics was taught but that could be a completely wrong view.

(Photo: Ville Miettinen)

Researchers at Ohio University have begun to determine whether these types of examples reinforce mathematics for students. They conduct a study in which college students are taught a simple but unfamiliar rule. Some students learn it through abstract symbols and some learn it through concrete examples. Then these students are tested on what they are told as a children's game, the rule is to use the same math rules as they have just been taught.

Students who learn rules through symbols do well in understanding the game. Students who learn through examples do not do better if they fully guess. This experiment has demonstrated that researchers' hypotheses are real examples of life that tend to distract students from math and students may have difficulty transferring their knowledge. into new problems without a completely abstract platform.

Now researchers are turning to studying smaller students to see how far this effect has been affected.