Error analysis in solving mathematical problems

Abstract

This paper presents a survey carried out within the Centre for Education Programme, in order to assist in improving the quality of the teaching and learning of Mathematics in Primary Education. From the study of the evaluative systems that constitute the scope of the research project, it was found that their focus is solving problems, and from this point, it began the development of several actions with the purpose of assisting the students in the process of solving them. One of these actions objected to analyze the errors presented by students in the 5th year in the interpretation, understanding, and problem-solving. We describe three games developed in six schools, with questions drawn from the “Prova Brasil” performed in previous years, in objective to diagnose the main difficulties presented by the students in solving the problems, besides helping them to verify possibilities to overcome such gaps. To reach the proposed objectives, a qualitative study was carried out in which the researchers were constantly involved during the process. After each meeting, there was an analysis of the responses developed to classify the errors in different categories. It was found that most students attended succeeded in solving the proposed problems, and major errors presented are related to the difficulty of interpretation.