An investigation of 5th and 6th grade students' solution strategies on inverse proportional problems

The main purpose of this research is to examine the strategies of fifth and sixth grade students while solving inverse proportional word problems. Multiple case study was used as one of the qualitative research methods in this study. The research was carried out with fifth and sixth grade students from two public middle schools in the Çukurova district of Adana province in the 2021-2022 academic year. The participants of the research consist of three fifth and three sixth grade students. A problem test consisting of word problems related to inverse proportion was applied as data collection tool. Document review and semi-structured interviews were used as qualitative data collection methods in this study. The data collected from the participants in the study were analyzed using the content analysis method. The findings of the study showed that fifth and sixth grade students used eight distinct strategies while solving inverse proportional word problems. It was seen that the fifth and sixth grade students were able to develop their intuitive strategies on inverse proportional problems. It has been observed that in cases where the numerical structures of the problems change, students failed to notice the inverse proportional relationships and made erroneous solutions based on direct proportionality and additive relationships. The findings of the study indicated that the numbers used in the problems both affect the difficulty level and the strategies utilized in solving the problems.