ERIC Number: EJ1405513
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-2331-186X
On the Math Kangaroo Finland: Homogeneous Subgroups, Misconceptions and Answering Choices
Neea Palojärvi; Mika Koskenoja; Anne-Maria Ernvall-Hytönen
Cogent Education, v10 n2 Article 2263624 2023
The Math Kangaroo is one of the biggest international mathematics competitions. In Finland, the number of participants has been around 15,000 in recent years. In this research, we considered Finnish fourth to ninth graders' performance in the Math Kangaroo Finland 2011, 2015 and 2019. We investigated the following problems: What kind of homogeneous subgroups contestants form based on their answer choices? Can misconceptions or answering choice strategies explain answer choices that were more popular than the correct answer? The subgroups obtained by LCA were described by contestants' general answering strategies and number of correct answers. We also looked at those wrong answer choices which were more popular than the correct one. It turned out that a strategy called estimation was a possible reason for these. Furthermore, misconceptions were more common among fourth to seventh graders' than older students and they mostly occurred in geometry.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Mathematics Education, Competition, International Programs, Homogeneous Grouping, Misconceptions, Cognitive Processes, Middle School Students
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Junior High Schools; Middle Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Finland
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A