The current study aimed to investigate children’s difficulties in word problem solving through assessing their ability to mathematize, or to identify the semantic role of the unknown from word problems. Fifth graders (n = 213) were given an advanced word problem reasoning task in which they had to match word problems with schematic diagrams that depict different processes (multiplication versus division) and the unknown being in different semantic roles (e.g., unit size, number of units, or total in an equal group problem). They were also tested on their mathematical problem solving as well as some potential confounding variables (i.e., intelligence and working memory) and mediators. The ability to identify the semantic role of the unknown was shown to be longitudinally predictive of children’s mathematical problem solving performance even after controlling for the effects of covariates and autoregressor. Such a relation was partially mediated by children’s ability to convert word problems into the correct number sentences/equations. The findings not only highlight the importance of unknown identification in mathematical problem solving process, but also provide a practical tool to assess such an ability.

本研究旨在通过评估儿童的数学化能力，或从单词问题中识别未知事物的语义作用，来调查儿童在解决单词问题时遇到的困难。五年级学生 (n = 213) 接受了一项高级单词问题推理任务，他们必须将单词问题与描述不同过程（乘法与除法）的示意图相匹配，并且未知事物具有不同的语义角色（例如，单位大小、数字单位，或在平等群体问题中的总数）。他们还接受了数学问题解决能力以及一些潜在的混杂变量（即智力和工作记忆）和调解因素的测试。即使在控制了协变量和自回归变量的影响之后，识别未知事物的语义作用的能力也被证明可以纵向预测儿童的数学问题解决能力。这种关系部分是由儿童将单词问题转换为正确的数字句子/方程式的能力所调节的。这些发现不仅突出了未知识别在数学问题解决过程中的重要性，而且还提供了一种评估这种能力的实用工具。