Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice

Advisor

Ronnie Hunter

Committee Member

Noel Gray

Committee Member

Kimberly Durham

Keywords

arithmetic expressions, assessments, comprehension, decoding, face-to-face interviews, Florida, lesson plans, mathematical abilities, mathematical operations, mathematics, middle school, performance, problem solving, reading, reading comprehension, real-world contexts, sixth-grade students, standardized assessments, students, word problems

Abstract

This applied dissertation was designed to address the poor performance of middle school students on math word problems attributed to the lack of reading comprehension skills. A review of standardized math assessments for middle school students confirmed that the greater proportion of questions is made up of word problems. Despite having strong mathematical skills, middle school students are likely to fail to find the correct solutions for math word problems. In the middle school classroom, the development of reading comprehension skills and mathematical abilities are tasks required of different teachers. Math teachers at a middle school in Florida did not know the importance of enriching their lesson plans with reading comprehension activities to improve their students’ performance on word problems.

The researcher accomplished the purpose of this dissertation by conducting face-to-face individual interviews with 10 sixth-grade students to enhance understanding of participants’ unique experiences with solving math word problems. During the face-to-face individual interviews, middle school students described their use or inability to use reading comprehension skills to decode and solve math word problems on standardized assessments. As a result, math teachers were encouraged to create room for reading comprehension activities when creating lesson plans for sixth-grade students.

Reading comprehension skills are instrumental in improving sixth-grade students’ performance on math word problems. Using reading comprehension skills, sixth-grade students can understand and decode word problems on standardized math assessments. Students who perform well on math word problems use reading comprehension skills to successfully navigate the problem-solving process resulting in an understanding of real-world contexts, development of arithmetic expressions, and application of the most suitable mathematical operations to find the correct solutions.

Download
Share Feedback

Share

COinS