Linguistic Influences on Junior High School Students’ Mathematics Word Problem Solving

Mastery of language of instruction is important for the successful teaching and learning of Mathematics since mathematical concepts are communicated through the use of language. The study sought to find Ghanaian Junior High School (JHS) 2 students’ performance in Mathematics word problems. It also investigated the linguistic difficulties students face when solving Mathematics word problems and how their English language proficiency affect their problem-solving procedures. A sequential mixed methods design was employed in the study. The target population was made up of all JHS 2 public school students in the Cape Coast Metropolis in the Central Region of Ghana. One hundred and eighty-seven JHS 2 students were selected from six public schools in the Cape Coast Metropolis through stratified random sampling procedures. Achievement test and interview guide were developed and used for the study. The data collected through the test were analysed using descriptive statistics, while that of the interview were analysed using percentages and presented as narrative description with some illustrative examples from what students said in the process of explaining their procedures. The results from the study showed that students had very weak ability in Mathematics word problem solving. Their performance declined as the difficulty level of the questions increased from primary to JHS. The authors recommended amongst others, the need for Mathematics teachers to pay extra attention to the teaching of word problem solving in Mathematics and in- service and pre-service providers to pay attention to Mathematics word problem in professional development programmes.