Making the invisible visible: an examination of African American students' strategy use during mathematical problem solving

By focusing on the voices of African American mathematics learners, this dissertation seeks to address a gap the in the problem solving and gender literature. Using a preexisting data set from the Mathematical Identity and Development Project (MIDDLE), I used mixed methods to provide a rich description of African American students as mathematical problem solvers and mathematics learners through the examination of students' strategy use on items assessing rational number and measurement concepts and student responses from mathematical autobiographies and student interviews. In this study, components of Schoenfeld (1985, 2006) and Polya's (1957) frameworks for successful problem solving was the tool of analysis. Eight major conclusions emerged from the study. Two conclusions address strategy use and success and nonsuccess during problem solving two address students' understanding, two addresse gender differences, and two address the profiles of student learners. A major finding in the analysis of students' profiles and interviews showed that males and females described an understanding of mathematics as doing mathematics, but the majority of females discussed the importance of helping others understand while the majority of males discussed applying their knowledge to real world situations. African American males and females employed similar strategies when problem solving and there were no gender differences in students' demonstration of conceptual understanding, but small differences in strategy use. Success on problems did not always indicate students having a procedural or conceptual understanding of the concepts assessed in the conceptual understanding items and nonsuccess on a conceptual understanding items did not always mean students lacked understanding.