Comparison of solutions of selected tasks by students today and 21 - 25 years ago

This thesis focuses on the comparison of solving selected non-standard word problems by 4th and 5th grade elementary school students at present and twenty-two years ago. The main aim is to analyze changes in problem-solving strategies, typical errors, success rates, and methods of graphical, arithmetic, and experimental solutions of word problems depending on current trends in mathematics education. The theoretical part situates the work within pedagogical and psychological literature, defines key concepts and typology of problems, addresses curricular changes, and describes metacognitive strategies and linguistic specifics of word problem formulations. The empirical part presents a replication of the research from 2003. The quantitative study conducted in 2025 processed data from two groups of students, each solving different sets of two problems, with about 300 students in each group. The results are compared with data obtained by M. Kaslová from a different generation of students, consisting of around 500 students per problem at that time. The study examines the influence of curricular innovations, differentiation in teaching, and inclusion on problem-solving approaches and student motivation. The findings reveal both stable phenomena and changes over the last twenty years, thus indicating a...