Vietnamese students’ problem-solving skills in learning about error of measurements

Problem-solving is one of the ten core competences that Vietnam’s new comprehensive general education program after 2018 focuses on. Based on the following findings that (a) in the history of mathematics, error and statistics have a closely related relationship with each other but in the current mathematic curriculum, they are taught separately, and (b) in Vietnam, there has not been any research on teaching error of measurements in the current curriculum, this research focuses on assessing Vietnamese students’ problem-solving skills in dealing with errors using statistical tools. The research was conducted following two paralleled approaches: (1) analyzing academic materials according to praxeological organization in relation to components of problem-solving skills so as to clarify the formation and development of problem-solving skills through the education system, (2) building an experiment of processing errors using statistical tools that students have learned in the curriculum and evaluating the degree of problem-solving skills of a sample of 201 students randomly chosen in Ho Chi Minh City. Research results show that although processing errors using statistics has been presented in Mathematics and Physics textbooks, the majority of student failed to propose a solution in the experiment. The research questions the practical teaching of teachers and teacher training in pedagogical universities as well as provides an evaluation of the reality of the current educational system, contributing to the development of mathematics curriculum and textbook composition after 2018.