ROLE OF STUDENTS’ CONTEXT FAMILIARITY IN DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS PROBLEM SOLVING AT PRE UNIVERSITY LEVEL

Abstract

In this study, role of context familiarity in students’ differential equations (DEs) solving was explored at pre-university level. An assessment test containing three self-developed DEs tasks were distributed among 430 students, studying in inter-colleges. Collected responses were analyzed using a scoring rubric containing three main stages (understanding, planning towards the solution and getting answer).Findings revealed that context familiarity positively affected students’ problem solving. Students showed better problem-solving skills in physics based problem as compared to biological related problem. Surprisingly, in solving compound interest related problem, students’performance was even better than physics related problem. Beside the positive affect of context familiarity, students have shown lower performance in getting answer and the increasing trend of errors was found in answering to logical questions. From the findings of this study, it may be concluded that context familiarity and contextual based problem solving have great potential to improve differential equation problem solving.