Indian school kids struggle to apply math in real-world scenarios: Study

A study titled "Children's Arithmetic Skills Do Not Transfer Between Applied and Academic Math," published in the journal “Nature” on Feb 5, reveals that teaching practices in India do not equip school students with strategies to apply mathematics in real-world situations.

A group of researchers, led by Nobel Prize-winning economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, conducted the study.

The research, consisting of three smaller parts, involved around 1,400 working children from vegetable markets in Delhi and Kolkata.

Additionally, around 450 youngsters aged 13 to 15, with no previous market-selling experience, were enrolled in local schools.

The idea for the study, according to Duflo, came about during one of her trips to India.

She was on a grocery run when she noticed that working children could easily perform complex mental calculations while selling vegetables in markets.

She decided to investigate whether the arithmetic skills used in the markets translated to the more abstract mathematical skills taught in schools in urban India.

In the first sub-study, undercover enumerators approached 201 vegetable vendors and bought odd amounts, such as 800 grams of potatoes at ₹20 per kilogram and 1.4 kg of onions at ₹15 per kilogram.

The enumerators asked for the total cost and handed over a 200-rupee note. They also provided a set of abstract arithmetic problems that 95%, 97%, and 98% of the students could correctly solve without using paper and pen.

Additionally, 52% of the youngsters were able to handle hypothetical market-based transactions with new commodities, prices, and units, all without the use of calculators, pens, or paper.

"When presented in the pen-and-paper format of the Annual State of Education Report (ASER) test, about 32% of children could solve the division of a three-digit number by a one-digit number, and just 54% could solve two subtraction problems involving two-digit numbers," Duflo explained.

In contrast, working children easily solved practical mental math problems of higher complexity.

In the second sub-study, which involved 400 working children from 39 markets, researchers found that, similar to their counterparts in Kolkata, they were able to accurately compute the amount owed and change for three consecutive market problems with 96%, 99%, and 97% success on their second attempt.

However, on the written ASER test, only 15% of students were able to divide correctly.

A play-based market was set up where schoolchildren sold goods to enumerators. Two hundred Delhi schoolchildren from 17 public schools in the same market zones were given the same written and verbal math problems as part of the study to see if their mathematical skills translated to real-world scenarios.

“Around 56% of schoolchildren completed division-level ASER tests, compared to just 15% of working children. But they performed poorly in market-based scenarios. Sixty-three percent, 51%, and 69% of schoolchildren completed the first, second, and third transactions correctly, despite using pen and paper and having all the time they wanted,” the study highlights.

“In a subsequent study, we raised the complexity level of real-life math problems, and only 10% of schoolchildren were able to solve them,” Duflo said.

Additionally, both school-age and working children were given a concrete word problem that mirrored the task working children complete.

The problem asked how much money a boy with ₹200 would have left after purchasing two vegetables in specific quantities at the market.

“Thirty-six percent of working children answered correctly, compared to just 1% of non-working schoolchildren,” Duflo added.

The study concludes that the current methodology does not teach children how to solve mathematical problems in practical situations.

Furthermore, it fails to capitalize on the fact that working children have independently developed these strategies.

"For instance, if you were to ask a working child to subtract 19 from 27 in an abstract way, they may not be able to do it, but if you ask how many tomatoes remain if you take away 19 tomatoes from 27, they will perform the task more quickly," Duflo said.

According to the study, these results highlight the need for a mathematical pedagogy that addresses translational difficulties by developing curricula that relate abstract mathematical concepts and symbols to real-world situations that make intuitive sense.

"It also calls for changes in how math is introduced to children. Pairing intuitive and abstract math in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade through play-based group games has a lasting impact," Duflo explains.