This study reports how the difficulty of simple worded percentage problems is affected by the problem structure and the complexity of the numbers involved. We also investigate which methods students know. Results from 677 Year 8 and 9 students are reported. Overall the results indicate that more attention needs to be given to this important topic.…

A program for national educational evaluation was established in Sweden in 1989. In 1992, a second data collection was carried out. The program is designed to serve national and local purposes of evaluation. One concept that has been emphasized strongly is an "explorative way of working." Evaluating an explorative way of working is a…

As part of the national assessment program in Sweden there have been two attempts to gain insight into students'"know-how" with knowledge. The first was a study conducted in 1992 that showed that students had not reached the goals established by the Swedish national curriculum for ninth graders with regard to an exploratory and critical…