Improving Students’ Problem Solving Ability by Applying Polya’s Four Steps and Schoenfeld’s Behavior Categories
International College Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University
ABSTRACT
Mathematical problem solving ability is a very important ability in learning mathematics. There are many suggestions and studies recommending the ways to improve this ability. Among those are from G. Polya and Alan H. Scheanfeld. This classroom action research aimed to improve students’ ability in math problem solving by applying suggestions from G. Polya and Alan H. Scheanfeld study. The topic used in this study was “inequalities”. Participants were 32 grade 9 students from a classroom I taught in the second semester, academic year 2014. The researcher developed 11 lesson plans allied with the ideas suggested by the two authors. The teaching lasted 13 hours. The results revealed that 93.75% of students passed the problem solving ability tests and more than 94% of students applied Polya’s step 1,2, and 3 (understand the problem, devise a plane, carry out the plane) in solving problems but only 27% in step 4 (look back)
KEYWORDS
Mathematical problem solving, Polya’s four steps and Schoenfeld’s behavior categories