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ERIC Number: ED675657
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Linguistic Features Predicting Math Word Problem Readability among Less-Skilled Readers
Kole Norberg; Husni Almoubayyed; Stephen Fancsali
International Educational Data Mining Society, Paper presented at the International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM) (18th, Palermo, Italy, Jul 20-23, 2025)
Solving a math word problem (MWP) requires understanding the mathematical components of the problem and an ability to decode the text. For some students, lower reading comprehension skills may make engagement with the mathematical content more difficult. Readability formulas (e.g., Flesch Reading Ease) are frequently used to assess reading difficulty. However, MWPs are typically shorter than the texts traditional readability formulas were designed to analyze. To identify metrics relevant to assessing the reading difficulty of MWPs, we identified 28 candidate features which may predict MWP readability. We then assessed the performance of 297,072 middle and high school students completing word problems in an intelligent tutoring system as part of standard educational practice. From this, we identified 4,446 (out of 9,421) problems where performance gaps between predicted less- and more-skilled readers were significantly larger than typical gaps between the groups. Finally, we tested how well the readability metrics could identify problems with performance gaps. Of five models tested, a random forest had the best predictive accuracy, AUC = 0.75. The findings suggest readability of the text played some role in less-skilled readers decreased performance and provide a path towards better understanding how to assess the readability of MWPs and make them more accessible to less-skilled readers. [For the complete proceedings, see ED675583.]
International Educational Data Mining Society. e-mail: admin@educationaldatamining.org; Web site: https://educationaldatamining.org/conferences/
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers; Reports - Research
Education Level: Junior High Schools; Middle Schools; Secondary Education; High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A