ASSESSMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN TRANSLATING WORD PROBLEMS INTO ALGEBRAIC EQUATIONS

The purpose of this study was to assess the difficulties secondary school students encounter in translating algebraic word problems into algebraic equations. This study was conducted at Nsukka Local Government Area, Enugu State, Nigeria. A survey research approach was employed in this study. Two research questions were answered and one hypothesis was tested in this study. The sample was 140 participants, selected using stratified proportionate random sampling approach. The data gathering tool was an essay test constructed by the researcher and entitled ‘Algebraic Word Problem Test (AWPT)’. The AWPT was validated by experts after which the inter-rater reliability was determined using Kendall’s correlation of concordance (W) which yielded reliability index of 0.81. The findings indicated that students did not encounter difficult in representing unknown variables with letters. However, students had difficulties in: (i) generating linear algebraic terms, (ii) creating linear algebraic expressions, (iii) equating two algebraic expressions to obtained the require equations, (iv) in generating the two distinct simultaneous equations as required by the questions, (v) creating quadratic terms, (vi) generating quadratic algebraic expressions, and (vii) creating and writing the final quadratic equation. Gender had no influence on difficulties encountered by students in translating word problems to equations. Recommendations were made in light of the findings.