Language and mathematical problem solving among bilinguals

College

College of Liberal Arts

Department/Unit

Psychology

Document Type

Article

Source Title

Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied

Volume

136

Issue

3

First Page

283

Last Page

297

Publication Date

1-1-2002

Abstract

Does using a bilingual's 1st or 2nd language have an effect on problem solving in semantically rich domains like school mathematics? The author conducted a study to determine whether Filipino-English bilingual students' understanding and solving of word problems in arithmetic differed when the problems were in the students' 1st and 2nd languages. Two groups participated - students whose 1st language was Filipino and students whose 1st language was English - and easy and difficult arithmetic problems were used. The author used a recall paradigm to assess how students understood the word problems and coded the solution accuracy to assess problem solving. The results indicated a 11st-language advantage; that is, the students were better able to understand and solve problems in their 1st language, whether the 1st language was English or Filipino. Moreover, the advantage was more marked with the easy problems. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

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Digitial Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1080/00223980209604156

Disciplines

Psychology

Keywords

Bilingualism; Word problems (Mathematics); Problem solving

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