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Abstract

81 community college students (50 males, 31 females) took a battery of tests including visual-verbal imagery use, block and sentence rotation, Group Embedded Figures and proofreading tests as well as mathematical problems classified as involving visual-synthetic, verbal-analytic, or combination problems. Students who performed well on visual rotation tasks and who processed visual materials analytically performed well on visual-synthetic and combination mathematical problems. By contrast, students who performed well on verbal rotation tasks performed well on combination problems, but employed a variety of solution methods. Results underscore the fact that students differ not only in their preference for the visual or verbal presentation of material in mathematical problems but also in their preference for a visual-synthetic or verbal-analytical approach to mathematical problems.

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Preference and Solution Patterns in Mathematics Performance

Abstract

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References