Newman Procedure: Assessing 4th Grade Students' Error On Fraction Word Problems

Abstract

Understanding the meaning of Mathematics symbols and formulas taught by teachers is always a challenge for students, not to mention when the questions are in form of word problems. This study, that analyzes students’ error on written Mathematical tasks, aims to identify the forms of error made by students and to determine the cause factors of the errors. This qualitative descriptive study uses phenomenology design. Main research data were written answers from 29 grade four students that were analyzed to determined the composition of errors types. Ten students, purposively sampled, were semi-structured interviewed using Newman Procedure. Structured interviews with the teacher and other students were also conducted to collect supporting data about the cause factors of error. Observation resulted the external cause factors during teaching and learning process. This study concluded that students’ errors on fraction word problems easy and medium levels were dominated by calculation errors. In those levels, few students had difficulties in understanding the task. In hard level, students’ errors on fraction word problems were dominated by transformation and understanding task errors. Further, the study found that the influencing factors to those errors were originated from students’ recklessness and misconceptions.