What makes mathematical word problem solving challenging? Exploring the roles of word problem characteristics, text comprehension, and arithmetic skills

In this study we investigated word-problem (WP) item characteristics, individual differences in text comprehension and arithmetic skills, and their relations to mathematical WP-solving. The participants were 891 fourth-grade students from elementary schools in Finland. Analyses were conducted in two phases. In the first phase, WP characteristics concerning linguistic and numerical factors and their difficulty level were investigated. In contrast...