A sample of 84 Grade 6 students from a Canadian west coast city were administered a set of 80 arithmetic word problems. The problems were developed as part of a larger set intended to reflect individual differences in problem solving. These particular problems were varied in the grade level of language and in the type and amount of extraneous information present. The items appear to be both reliable (internal consistency of the items, Cronbach alpha, for sets of 16 items ranged from 0.86 to 0.88) and valid (criterion-related and concurrent validity were indicated by consistently significant correlations with reading and mathematics achievement measures). Significant overall effects were observed when three CTBS mathematics achievement groups were compared on problems varying vocabulary level and extraneous information.
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