Coding strategic behaviour in mathematical problem solving

There has been some debate about the extent to which contextual'stories' and graphical images can help pupils to think their way through numerical problems. The degree to which contexts stimulate useful'models to think with' may vary considerably. Some contexts seem to encourage children to reason more effectively, but others have little impact either on pupils'performance, or on the way in which they tackle the computations required. In this study three sets of four questions involving subtraction and division were trialled with a total sample of 1795 Year 6 to 9 pupils. In each comparison, about a quarter of the pupils could answer the question only when it was presented in context, or only out of context, but not both. Pupils' methods of working were analysed to reveal differences in their approach to the different questions.