A Survey On The Ninth Grade Students' Mathematical Modeling Competencies

With the development of society,the wide application of mathematics prompts people to use more and more mathematical knowledge to deal with problems in life and work,that is,citizens are required to have certain mathematical modeling competencies.Since the new curriculum reform,our country's primary and secondary mathematics curriculum standards have also paid more attention to mathematical modeling,and even regarded it as one of the six core competencies of high school mathematics.However,many surveys have found that mathematical modeling education has not been well implemented in primary and secondary schools in China.Under the background of the increasingly important mathematical modeling competencies,how to accurately evaluate students' mathematical modeling competencies and how teachers should improve teaching to promote the development of students' mathematical modeling competencies naturally become research problems that educational researchers need to pay attention to.There are two different perspectives in academia when understanding mathematical modeling competencies.One is holistic,and the other is atomistic.Chinese scholars rarely evaluate students' mathematical modeling competencies from the atomistic perspective,pay insufficient attention to students' mathematical modeling competencies throughout compulsory schooling,and also lack evaluation instruments with good reliability and validity.Therefore,the study is aiming to develop a mathematical modeling competencies test with good reliability and validity,and thereby investigate the status of mathematical modeling competencies from the atomistic perspective,and also compare the differences in mathematical modeling competencies among different groups.It is hoped that the findings from this study can provide implications for educational researchers and front-line mathematics teachers.Based on literature review,this study divided the mathematical modeling competencies into five sub-competencies,including situation simplification ability,mathematicization ability,model solving ability,model interpretation ability and model validating ability.On this basis,a 15-item test with three measuring each of the five sub-competencies was developed,piloted and validated.In the main study,a convenient sample of 430 ninth grade students from 3 different types of junior high schools in Sichuan province participated in the survey.SPSS26.0 and Mplus7.0 were used to perform the data analysis.The survey concluded below:(1)The mathematical modeling competencies of ninth grade students were slightly above the middle level.Specifically,the model validating ability was slightly lower than the middle level,while the other four sub-competencies is slightly higher than the middle level.(2)The mathematical modeling competencies of boys were significantly higher than that of girls,but the effect size was relatively small.Specifically,there's no significant gender difference in the ability of situation simplification,model interpretation and model validating among ninth grade students.While in mathematicization ability,boys were significantly higher than girls,but the effect size was small.The interaction of gender and school type was significant on model solving ability.Simple effects analysis showed that: in ordinary middle schools and township middle schools,the model solving ability of boys was significantly higher than that of girls,but the effect size was very small.While in key middle schools,there was no significant difference in model solving ability between male and female students.(3)The mathematical modeling competencies and five sub-competencies of ninth grade students in key middle schools were significantly higher than those of ordinary middle schools and township middle schools,the effect size was basically relatively large.The mathematical modeling competencies,model validating ability and model solving ability of ordinary middle schools' ninth grade students were significantly higher than those of township middle schools,and the effect size was also relatively large.In terms of situational simplification ability,mathematicization ability and model interpretation ability,there was no significant difference between ordinary middle schools' ninth grade students and those of township middle schools.