Problem-solving strategies utilized by 8th grade students and errors they face during the problem-solving process

This research is conducted to determine strategies utilized by 8th grade students when they are solving problems and to determine at which stage the students make errors during the process of solving problems. For this purpose, a test that consists of 15 open-ended questions, each of which can be solved with at least three strategies, is prepared. When the problem test was being prepared, it was benefited from different sources and studies. The research is conducted with 60 8th grade students selected with purposive sampling method who were continuing their education during the 2017-2018 academic year at secondary schools regulated by the Ministry of National Education at Saruhanlı district of the city of Manisa. The problem-solving strategies utilized by students are determined by examining their solutions, and errors made by students are examined via the error analysis inventory used by Wijaya et al. (2014), which takes the categories of errors developed by Newman (1977, 1983) as its basis. This research is a qualitative research and descriptive research method is used within this study. For the reliability and validity of the study, expert opinions were taken from three secondary school teachers and a faculty member. The data analysis was made according to the criteria that are used to determine strategy types and criteria to determine errors in the error analysis inventory. Before the execution of open-ended problem test, problem solving strategies that were foreseen to be utilized by students during the problem-solving process were determined and shown on the table of specifications. As a result, it is found that students who solved the problems correctly utilized the strategy of guess and check the most. This strategy was followed by make a drawing or diagram strategy, arithmetic strategy, write an equation strategy, in this respective order. It is found that the least used strategy is the make a table strategy. When the errors made were assessed according to the Error Analysis Inventory of Newman, it is found that most of the errors were made at the step of comprehension (50,71%).