Enhancing Students Learning through Error Analysis

Wong Khoon Yoong

Department of Science and Mathematics Education
Universiti Brunei Darussalam
Context
On 25 November 2000, the Secondary Mathematics School-based Committee organised its fifth national
seminar at SM Sayyidina Husain with the theme Enhancing Students Learning through Error Analysis and
ICT. All the heads of mathematics department from government secondary schools in Brunei took part in
this seminar. The morning session was devoted to a workshop on understanding students mathematical
thinking through error analysis, with hands-on interviews with a group of Form 2 students. In the afternoon
session, the participants worked on computer activities that can be integrated into the teaching of Form 1
mathematics and planned a draft scheme of such integration for their schools.
The morning workshop consisted of four parts:
1.
A lecture on students mathematical thinking and error analysis.
2.
Interviews conducted by the participants on a sample of Form 2 students.
3.
Participants who used the same interview problems shared their findings within their groups.
4.
Report of group findings to all the participants and implications for teaching and remediation.
The remaining part of this paper summarises the main points of the lecture, describes the procedures of the
interview, and highlights some suggested strategies. The group findings are given in three reports written by
John Heather, Susan Johnson, and Richard Josefek, which follow this paper.
Teacher Talks and Students Listen
The typical mathematics lesson in Brunei Darussalam is that the teacher talks most of the time to explain the
mathematics using mostly words and symbols, to demonstrate how to carry out the required operations, and
to assign seatwork for practice. The students, if they are not bored or disruptive, will sit in rows and pay
attention. The teacher may use some low order questions to probe understanding and most of these
questions are answered in a chorus fashion. When students answer that they have understood, this usually
means that they know what steps to take to solve the problem and how to carry out the steps, but rarely do
they think about concepts, meanings, and reasoning.
This ubiquitous chalk and talk method, especially when not properly executed, has given rise to several
learning problems, many of which have been discussed in journals or presented at conferences. However,
many teachers in Brunei are not aware of these findings because of a lack of access to journals and
conference proceedings. Hence, they do not benefit from the work of mathematics research conducted both
locally and internationally. The first purpose of this workshop is to briefly summarise five areas of learning
problems.
Five Learning Problems
The following five learning problems (though there are many more) are presented as a heuristic device to
highlight certain key ideas. In reality some of these problems are inter-related and may appear in the same
error shown in the students work.
1. Attach own meanings. Some students confuse the meanings of words used in mathematics lessons by
attaching their own meanings to them. For example, to find the volume of an object, they may think of the
volume of sound on their TV. When told that eliminate means to get rid of when solving simultaneous
equations, they take this to mean just ignore it. This is shown by the following example (after Herrington,
Wong, & Kershaw, 1994).
Solve by elimination:
5x y = 8 and 2x + y = 6
First eliminate the y terms: 5x = 8 and 2x = 6
Next, add the x terms:
7x = 14, so x = 2
Substitute x to get y:
10 y = 8, y = 2
1

Since the solutions are correct, the students become reinforced in this erroneous working until they are
confronted with examples for which it leads to the wrong answers or the observant teacher notices this and
gives the appropriate feedback when checking the students work.
2. Incomplete or fuzzy thinking. Sometimes the students pay only partial attention to the teachers
explanation as a result of boredom, tiredness, distractions (there are many in the busy classrooms), or
monotonous tone of the teacher. Subsequently they can recollect only part of the explanation and then try to
patch it up with their own logic, which may be faulty. In a Form 2 class, the teacher had just explained the
meaning of a0 = 1 and asked the class what is the value of 20. One of the students said it is 0, and used the
following pattern to justify his answer:
22 = 4 = 2 2
21 = 2 = 2 1
So
20 = 2 0 = 0
Obviously he had not paid full attention to the teachers explanation or he found that explanation to be in
conflict with his own logic. As mathematics teachers, we should treasure this moment when our students are
really thinking about the mathematics instead of mechanically following an algorithm or memorising given
facts without conceptual understanding. Students at the puzzling stage are ripe for making the conceptual
jump to extend their mathematical understanding, and an empathetic teacher can do something decisive at
this critical moment.
3. Mix up the rules. It is no surprise that students often mix up the rules because they do not really have
relational understanding of what they are doing (Skemp, 1976) and their long-term memory is cluttered with
numerous rules that look very similar. The classic example is, when multiplying two decimals, the students
align the decimal points like in addition of decimals. For example, Kloosterman and Gainey (1993) asked a
student to multiply 0.4 0.6, and was given 2.4. When challenged that this answer was a little high, the
student explained that when you multiply two numbers, the result is always bigger. Besides, dont you just
line up the decimal points? Other notorious mix-ups are in solving algebraic equations using the move this
over and change sign type, inappropriate distributing like 2(x + y) = 2x + 2y versus (x + y)2 = x2 + y2, inverse
1
-1
notation with x-1 = 1
x and inverse function f (x) = f ( x ) , and many more.
4. Salient features. In an attempt to make things easy for the students, some teachers give incomplete
explanations by focussing on certain salient features that illustrate only some of the features of the concept.
For example, many students, including some of my pre-service mathematics education students, believe that
direct proportion is when one variable increases with another variable. On the graph one will get a straight
line. This conception is easy to remember but is unfortunately incomplete. They fail to notice that the straight
line must pass through the origin or that the quotient of the corresponding pairs of values must be a constant.
It is easy to trick them with this simple example. A taxi charges $1 for the flag down charge and 50 cents per
km. Construct the table of charge ($c) against distance (d km), like the one below. Many students will claim
that the charge is directly proportional to the distance, because they both increase together.
Distance, d (km)
Charge, c ($)

1
1.50

2
2.00

3
2.50

4
3.00

A different example of how a salient feature can be misleading is to compare the graphs of y = x and
y = x + 1. See Figure 1. The teacher intends to show that the second graph is obtained from the first one by
translating the latter one unit vertically upward. However, some students believe that they can get the same
result by translating the first graph horizontally one unit to the left. This works only for lines with gradient 1,
and if other gradients are given, the students could be led to the correct interpretation.

Figure 1. Graphs of y = x and y = x + 1.

5. A conformist attitude. Since students are often trained to follow instructions meticulously (always show
workings!), seldom supported by conceptual justifications, they are not used to think of alternatives and are
uncomfortable with them. One Form 2 student was asked to expand (t + 7)2, which he did correctly after
some struggle. Then he was asked to find the value of 92. He faithfully substituted t = 2 in the expansion and
obtained 81. Then I asked whether it would be alright to multiply out like 9 2 = 9 9. He said no, because the
teacher would not give mark for this. He was obviously score-smart but this also reflects the conformist
attitude of many students when they are doing mathematics.
Not Asking Questions
Most Bruneian students are too shy or are not accustomed to asking questions in lessons, even though they
might be puzzled by some of the problems mentioned above. Thus, these learning problems become hidden
from the teachers, who might think that all is well with their teaching.
To counter this unsatisfactory tendency, it is important for teachers to know more about how students think
and the reasons they give to justify their answers to problems. Research in mathematics education has
uncovered numerous misconceptions students at all levels have about mathematics; see for example, Hart
(1981) and Olivier (1989). Their ideas are neither flawless nor useless, but could be used as springboards
for inquiry (Borasi, 1994). Teachers can use this knowledge of students thinking to plan their lessons. What
is even better is for teachers to find more about the thinking and misconceptions of their own students. This
should be done systematically, and one such technique is through interviewing the students, using a scheme
such as Newmans error analysis.
Newmans Error Analysis
At the workshop, the handout below was distributed and discussed. This method has been used widely in
mathematics education research locally and in other countries. Excerpts of interviews conducted by local
M Ed graduates (Lim, 2000; Noridah, 1999; Radiah, 1998, Rashidah, 1997) were used to highlight
misconceptions in students thinking in various mathematics topics at the secondary level. Question 7 was
included to probe students feelings towards mathematics and how they had learned it in school.
Classification
1. Reading
2. Comprehension

3. Transformation
4. Processing skills
5. Encoding ability
6. Careless

Typical Questions
Please read the question to me.
(If you dont know a word or number,
leave it out.)
(a) (Point to a word or symbol.) What
does this word/symbol mean?
(b) Tell me what the question is asking
you to do.
(What do you mean when you say ?)
Tell or show me how you start to find an
answer to this question.
Show me how you get the answer.
Tell me what you are doing as you work.
(Let student work on a piece of paper.)
Write down the answer to the question.
(Obtain correct answer in second attempt
during interview; incorrect first attempt
when doing the test. Students spot own
mistakes.)

Errors
Do not recognise key words or
symbols.
Can read the problems well but
cannot comprehend the meaning
of the words, symbols or question.
Cannot transform sentences into
mathematical forms.
Can choose an appropriate
operation but cannot complete the
operation accurately.
Can perform the correct
operations but writes the answer
incorrectly.
Different from the errors above.
(About 20% of errors reported in
some studies are of this type.)

Additional Questions?
7. Teaching

(a) Tell me how youve learned this topic

______.
(b) Do you find this topic easy or
difficult? Why?
(c) Do you find this topic interesting or
boring? Why?
Teach the student how to solve the problem?
Procedure
After this presentation, the participants were divided into 17 pairs, each pair focussing on two pre-designed
problems. There were 8 problems covering number, algebra, geometry, and statistics. The participants were
asked to modify the problems, if necessary. Each pair worked with one Form 2 student at the assigned
location. The first participant showed the first problem sheet to the student and carried out the interview,
while the second participant took notes. The roles of the participants were reversed for the second problem.
The participants were free to teach the student how to solve the problems, if they wished to do so. The
interview took about 30 minutes to complete. It could be conducted in English or in Malay.
After the interviews were completed, the participants working on the same questions met to compare their
findings. They discussed ways to prepare lessons to anticipate these difficulties and remedial strategies to
address each type of error. Each group presented the main findings and strategies to the whole group. This
took about an hour. The presentations from three groups are given in the following papers.
Strategies and Comments
Some of the strategies and comments presented by the groups are given below. Not many specific strategies
were discussed, partly due to a lack of time. This calls for further deliberation in other occasions.
Problem areas
Careless, work too
quickly, bored, fatigue.

Weak foundation.

Forget what has been

learned.
Do not understand.
Recall the wrong
procedure.
Misconceptions, faulty
schema.

Misconceptions are not

easy to detect.
Misconceptions are

resistant to change.
Bad teaching.

Have to cover the

syllabus.

Comments and Strategies

Emphasise the main steps; e.g., in finding median, arrange the items in order
first.
Timetable mathematics as early as possible.
Use structured questions.
Use interesting introduction, for example, why use median, use concrete
shapes for the similarity problem.
Reinforce basic skills in primary schools.
Use displays in classroom.
Give more frequent revision and quick tests.
Try something different, for example, more concrete rather than abstract.
Go back to simplifying the problem again.
Estimate the solution first.
Usually derived from early learning problems.
Understanding is more important than rules.
Use practical situations and problems.
Experiments to highlight their problems.
Does not apply to our group!
Take algebra out of primary syllabus.
Reduce the syllabus, if possible. This is a problem for the ministry of
education.
Level of algebra is too high.

At the end of the morning session, many participants expressed appreciation for the opportunity to learn
about this technique. Their post-seminar activities are: interview three students during afternoon lessons in
their school, plan lessons to address these errors, and after two months, interview the students again to find
out whether there has been any improvement in students learning. This will be monitored in the coming
months!
References
Borasi, R. (1994). Capitalising on errors as springboards for inquiry. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 25(2), 166208.
Hart, K. M. (Ed.). (1981). Children's understanding of mathematics 1116. London: John Murray.
Herrington, T., Wong, K.Y. & Kershaw, L. (1994). Maths Works: Fostering mathematical thinking and
learning. Adelaide: Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers.
Kloosterman, P., & Gainey, P. H. (1993). Students thinking: Middle grades mathematics. In D. T. Owens
(Eds.), Research ideas for the classroom: Middle grades mathematics (pp. 321). New York:
Macmillan.
Lim Ting Hing (2000). The teaching and learning of algebraic equations and factorisation in O-Level
mathematics: A case study. Unpublished M Ed dissertation. Universiti Brunei Darussalam.
Noridah binti Abdullah, Hajah (1999). The Teaching and Learning of Inverse Functions. M Ed dissertation.
Universiti Brunei Darussalam.
Olivier, A. (1989). Handling pupils misconceptions. Pythagoras, 21, 1019.
Radiah binti Haji Mohidin, Hajah (1999). The Difficulties faced by the Students of Brunei Darussalam in
Transforming Short Mathematical Word Statements into Algebraic Expressions. Unpublished M Ed
report. Universiti Brunei Darussalam.
Rasidah Junaidi (1997). A comparative study of pupils performance in solving mathematical word problems
in English and in Bahasa Melayu. Unpublished M Ed report. Universiti Brunei Darussalam.
Skemp, R. R. (1976). Relational understanding and instrumental understanding. Mathematics Teaching, 77,
2026.
Interview on Algebra and Word Problems
John Heather
Maktab Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin (SOAS)
At a recent workshop/seminar for HODs mathematics held at SM Sayyidina Husain, one of our tasks was to
interview a Form 2 student to investigate his/her thought processes in working through a particular problem.
Two teachers worked as a team with one asking questions and the other taking notes. It was necessary to put
the student at ease with the situation, and be made a member of the team, so that support could be given
during the students ordeal. Four teams worked with the same two problems, which gave a further insight
when the teams met afterwards to make a presentation afterwards to all those attending.
Problem 1 (Algebra). Simplify

x 2 5x
x5

When asked to read the problem, all four students either ignored the word simplify or used solved. All
students clearly did not know what was expected of them. So that the 15-minute session was not spent in idle
chatter, all teams investigated further.
Three students were able to explain the meaning of x2, however, only one student was able to explain 5x. We
thought it best to approach from a simplified version 2x, and the student was happy to write 2x = x + x. From
this the next step 5x = x + x + x + x + x was obtained. At this stage the idea of multiplication had not entered
his thoughts. We prompted this line of thought by suggesting that, instead of having 5 xs, he had 5 3s.
Before I could say anything the student gave us the answer 15 and he went on to explain that this was 5 times
3. We went back to 5 3s and suggested this could be written as 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3. He agreed and wrote 15
and added 3 5 = 15.
When asked to tackle the original problem, the student had written
5

x2 5x = 5x(2 1) = 5x1
He was obviously trying to remember rules concerning indices. Only one student of the four showed any
concept of factorisation when it was suggested that x2 5x may be factorised. Investigation came to a halt
due to time constraints although our student had progressed to x2 5x = x x 5x.
The one student who showed he could factorise wrote

x 2 5x
x ( x 5 )
. Cancelling followed. Although

x5
x 5

giving the correct answer, the working was illegitimate as x and 5 were cancelled separately.

During our conversation, the student commented that he had started studying algebra during Primary 6.
Therefore the problem was being presented to students who had started algebra as a mathematics topic at
least two years before. Words such as simplify and evaluate are not understood. It is clear that students
have been given rules that they find difficult to apply, and this suggests a lack of understanding. I would
advocate, no mention of rules until an understanding has been established. This gave way to a short
discussion in our team meeting afterwards and a colleague mentioned she would be unhappy to teach algebra
without referring to rules. I leave it to the reader to establish how much progress has been made since the
introduction of algebra to the students involved. However I believe that Primary 6 is far too early to establish
the concepts involved in algebra, and the survival tactic of following rules is counter-productive, from which
many of our students never recover, while others make progress in spite of not establishing the foundations.
Problem 2 (Word Problem). John and Mary decided to start a business. John invested $36 000 and Mary
invested $24 000. They agreed to share the profit in the same ratio as the sums of money they invested. If the
total profit is $25 000, how much was Marys share of the profit?
When asked to read the question, the only word that caused problems was invested, two out of four
students used another word. All the students related to the problem, and knew the ratio sign, although one
said he did not know the symbol used for ratio, but then went ahead and used it.
When asked to find the answer, three out of four students wanted to use their calculators. Our student was
showing signs of anxiety and was visibly relieved to find that we thought it was a good idea.
All the students were able to make progress to 3 : 2 as the ratio they wanted to use. One student went on and
completed the question, but three of the students, while knowing that they should consider $25 000,
struggled to know what to do with the ratio. They all wanted to work with 3
2 $25 000, but when it was
pointed out that this gave an answer greater than $25 000, the students revised their working to
and therefore obtained the answer.

2
5

$25 000

We felt that this question had been quite well done, perhaps since it meant something to the students and was
a real life problem, which they felt comfortable with it.
Interview on Statistics and Geometry Problems
Susan Johnson
SM Sayyidina Abu Bakar
At a recent seminar for Secondary Mathematics HODs within Brunei, held at SM Sayyidina Husain on the
25th November, 2000, interviews were conducted with students to try and help us understand the way they
think and to get an insight into the reasons they use to justify their answers. We used the Newman Error
Analysis method for interviewing students, which investigates a students ability to go through the following
five steps when solving a problem:
reading the question,
comprehension of what the question is asking for and whether they understand certain words or symbols
within the question,
transformation: knowing how they will start,
processing skills,
6

encoding ability: writing down a sensible answer.

Interviews were conducted with two teachers talking to one Form 2 student. Each interview looked into the
solving of two mathematical problems. Four groups covered the same problems and then collated their
findings. Below are the collective findings of our four groups.
Problem 1 (Statistics). The histogram shows the number of hours some students spent doing homework on a
particular day.
5
4
3
2
1
0

(a)
(b)

01234

How many students were there in this group?

Find the median number of hours the students spent on doing homework.

Results of interviews
Reading. All four students managed to read the questions easily.
Comprehension. When asked about their understanding of the word histogram, all four students were able
to say that this is a type of graph. One mentioned that the bars had to have no gaps. Most of the students
had some idea of how to interpret each bar, for example, that two students did no homework, that four
students did one hour, and so on. All four students had a fuzzy concept of the word median, and knew only
that it related to the middle.
Transformation. Students appeared confident and knew what they wanted to do.
Processing and encoding. All four students were able to process the answer to part (a) correctly, explaining
that they needed to add the heights of the bars. One student response was:

However, for part (b), only one student was able to work out the correct median, using the idea of finding the
middle position first. Even so, her answer was incorrectly encoded because she equated position and actual
n
n 1
median as the same thing. Also, she used
rather than
to identify the median position:
2
2

The other three students initially all did similar things by listing the five numbers written in part (a) and
crossing out the outside values to find the middle.

They then realised their answer was not sensible (sometimes only when prompted, so the middle student
does five hours of homework?) and tried again. For the next attempt, one student ordered the same five
numbers, and confidently came up with a middle value of three, quite happy that this was the correct answer.

Another student corrected his results by presenting a table, the contents of which were accurate.

However, he then proceeded to use only the bottom row of the table to find the median, failing to include the
number of students in his calculations. So, he arrived at the correct answer, but using the wrong reasoning.
One student (only when guided a little) listed all fifteen students homework amounts individually, and then
located the middle accurately. He would have been unable to do this unaided.

Problem 2 (Geometry). Which triangles are similar? See diagram below. The students were given cut-outs
of the triangles and they could use them, if they wish.

N
L
E

Results of interview
Reading. Once again, all four students capably read the questions out loud.
Comprehension. Initially, all four students described the word similar to mean the same, but could not
specify further. When asked to describe what a triangle was, the students found it difficult to verbalise an
answer, and one student said that it was a pyramid.
Transformation. The students found it difficult to explain what they needed to do to answer this problem.
8

Processing and encoding. Initially, by just looking at the given shapes, students tended to pick out the
wrong two triangles. When given cut-outs of the four triangles, they were more easily able to pick out the
two similar triangles accurately. However, few students could explain why the two shapes they chose were
similar. Only one student came up with the idea of the angles being the same.
In summary, only superficial understanding of medians and similarity were shown by these four students. It
seems that students have certain processes learnt, such as crossing out numbers from the outside, until they
reach the middle value, or arranging numbers in order for median, but without true understanding of the
concepts involved, they use these learnt processes in a haphazard way.
Interview on Algebra and Number Problems
Richard Jozefek
SM PJN PG Hj Abu Bakar, Kuala Belait
Two students were each given, separately, two problems, one based on number work the other on algebra.
For both topics, the Form 2 students had the basic mathematical techniques to solve the problems but they
had not covered the actual topic being analyzed.
The exercise was not a test but an analysis of the students mathematical reasoning. It was structured to
follow the Newman Error Analysis stages.
Problem 1 (Number problem). On a coach tour, the fare for one student is $6, which is 75% that of an
adults fare. Calculate the adult fare.
Student 1. This student had no problem in reading the question. He also understood the meaning of the
problem although coach tour and fare seemed strange words or concepts to him. However, when asked what
he understood he explained the it was the same as saying the if his $30 per month pocket money was 5% of
his fathers monthly income, how much did his father earn in a month. So, the interview continued and the
student was asked to solve the problem. His first line read:
75
$6 =
100
3

At this stage the student did not interpret 75% as 4 or have the confidence to solve the problem manually.
Using the calculator he correctly produced the result of his expression as $4.05.
It was pleasing to note at this stage that the student knew the answer was wrong, and when questioned said
that any correct answer must be greater than $6. But he was unable to proceed any further. The interviewer
questioned further to find out why an alternative expression could not be produced and the student responded
by saying that the expression must involve 75% and $6 but he did not know in which way.
The interviewer then asked the student to solve a very similar problem, namely that the students fare of $6
was 50% of the adult fare. Immediately, by mental calculation only, the student said the adult fare was $12.
When asked how he had done this calculation so quickly he replied that 100%, the adults fare, was double
the students fare. Asked to apply the same method to the original problem, he was unable to proceed any
further.
Student 2. This student had good reading skills and understood the question, in so much, that she appreciated
that the adults fare would be greater than the students fare. She appreciated that 75% was the same fraction
3
as 4 and the first line of her solution was: 75% x = 6.
Clearly, this student had been able to move to the abstract concept of algebra in order to find a solution.
Further, she was able to produce a correct first-line expression. The prospect of a solution seemed good.
However, the student was unable to solve the equation she had written. The interviewer questioned the
student on her understanding of reciprocals but it brought no further progress and, once again, the problem
was left unsolved.
9

Problem 2 (Algebra problem). Factorize

x2 4y2

Student 1. This student read the problem as: Factorize x two minus four y two.
When asked to explain what factorize meant, he replied that it meant to make it longer. When asked
what type of factorizing he had done previously, it was clear that this was limited to finding a common
factor. When asked to explain what a factor was, he said he did not know and this was the same response
when asked why do we factorize expressions? The first line of his solution was:
x x 4y y
Nothing wrong in his transformation of the problem but it was obvious that he did not recognize the method
of factorizing the difference of two squares. The next line in processing produced:
= x 5y, adding that 4y y = 4y + y = 5y.
The student did not think his answer was correct but did not attempt to check his answer or to provide an
alternative solution.
Student 2. This student, again, easily coped with reading the problem and said it as: Factorize x squared
minus four y squared.
When asked to explain the word factorize, she found it very difficult and preferred to describe it through
the reverse process of expansion, saying that if two expressions are multiplied to make a single expression,
then factorizing would give those two expressions. The first line of her solution was:
= x(x 4y y)
It is assumed that this was considered her answer because, in her next line, she did check her solution by the
reverse process, expansion, to give:
= x2 4y2 !!
Conclusion
Although our two students did not provide a correct solution to either problem, it was very interesting to note
their thought processes. In the number problem, there was an expectation of what the answer should have
been even though student 1 said he would have accepted any calculation that produced an answer greater
than $6. It was also interesting to note how quickly the problem was solved when 75% was changed to 50%
because he knew, through experience, that you had to double to get back to the whole. Student 2, who
provided a correct opening to the number problem, understood what a reciprocal was, in so much, that if you
gave her a number she could give the reciprocal but was unable to provide the arithmetic relationship
between a number and its reciprocal. The algebraic problem proved too abstract for the students; their
concept of factorization was limited to a simple common factor and its use in mathematics was vague.

10