Teaching Algebraic Word Problems through Constructivism: The Real Classroom Evidence

Aim: Due to constant effort by educators to find lasting solution to student’s poor performance in classrooms, there is the need to elaborate on the systematic processes that can be adopted and employed in mathematics classroom when teaching algebraic word problems to bring about meaningful learning in improving performance. Therefore, the study gathered data and analyzed it in the end to find out the effect of teaching through constructivism.

Study Design: Action research design was used for the study.

Methodology: The main instrument used for the study was test items (pre-test and post-test). The sample size for the study comprised of forty-six (46) students of which nineteen (19) were female students, and twenty-seven (27) were male students.

Results: In the pre–test (see Table 1), forty- two (42) out of the forty- six (46) students scored marks which are either less than half or half of the 30 marks for the test representing 91.3% of the total number of students as compared to the frequency distribution of the post – test scores (Table 2), where out of the forty six (46) students who took part in the test, thirty-eight (38) of them obtained more than half of the total mark of 30 for the test representing 82.7% of the total students number.

Conclusion: The findings from the results of the study confirmed that the use of constructivist approach of teaching and learning will assist the students to have the opportunity of using their own experience to create their conceptual understanding (ability and capability), which will consequently improve their academic performance. Therefore, it is recommended that regular professional development should be organized for mathematics teachers at all levels to refresh them on practical approaches to teaching mathematics through constructivism.