title: Word problems: a review of linguistic and numerical factors contributing to their difficulty.
abstract: Word problems (WPs) belong to the most difficult and complex problem types that pupils encounter during their elementary-level mathematical development. In the classroom setting, they are often viewed as merely arithmetic tasks; however, recent research shows that a number of linguistic verbal components not directly related to arithmetic contribute greatly to their difficulty. In this review, we will distinguish three components of WP difficulty: (i) the linguistic complexity of the problem text itself, (ii) the numerical complexity of the arithmetic problem, and (iii) the relation between the linguistic and numerical complexity of a problem. We will discuss the impact of each of these factors on WP difficulty and motivate the need for a high degree of control in stimuli design for experiments that manipulate WP difficulty for a given age group.
authors.affiliation: Diagnostics and Cognitive Neuropsychology, Department of Psychology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany ; LEAD Graduate School, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Gabriella
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Daroczy
authors.affiliation: LEAD Graduate School, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Magdalena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wolska
authors.affiliation: LEAD Graduate School, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany ; Department of Linguistics, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Walt Detmar
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Meurers
authors.affiliation: Diagnostics and Cognitive Neuropsychology, Department of Psychology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany ; LEAD Graduate School, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany ; Knowledge Media Research Center Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Hans-Christoph
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Nuerk
keywords: difficulty; linguistics complexity; numerical complexity; text properties; word problems