Abstract Word problems are widely used in math instruction to convey arithmetic operations within the context of everyday situations. Although they require solving an arithmetic problem, there is only little research regarding influences of basic numerical processes on the difficulty of arithmetic word problems. Therefore, the present study set out to investigate influences of place-value and magnitude processing as reflected by the carry/borrowing and the problem size effect. Accordingly, we assessed 128 children between 8 and 11 years of age on two-digit addition and subtraction problems presented in both word problem and digital-Arabic formats. Our results indicated that word problems were more difficult to solve. Closer inspection of basic numerical processes indicated that presentation of arithmetic problems in word problem format significantly increased the effects of place-value and magnitude processing, driving a higher level of difficulty. This finding seems to suggest quantitative as well as qualitative differences in arithmetic operations and their underlying basic numerical processes when embedded in word problems.

中文翻译：

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位值和量级处理对单词解题的影响

摘要 字问题广泛用于数学教学中，以在日常情况下传达算术运算。尽管它们需要解决算术问题，但关于基本数值过程对算术单词问题难度的影响的研究很少。因此，本研究着手调查由进位/借用和问题大小效应所反映的位值和幅度处理的影响。因此，我们对 128 名 8 至 11 岁的儿童进行了以单词问题和数字阿拉伯语格式呈现的两位数加减法问题的评估。我们的结果表明单词问题更难解决。对基本数值过程的进一步检查表明，以单词问题形式呈现算术问题显着增加了位值和大小处理的效果，从而提高了难度。这一发现似乎表明，当嵌入到文字问题中时，算术运算及其潜在的基本数值过程在数量和质量上存在差异。