Machine-guided solution to mathematical word problems

Bussaba Amnueypornsakul, Suma Bhat

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Mathematical word problems (MWP) test critical aspects of reading comprehension in conjunction with generating a solution that agrees with the "story" in the problem. In this paper we design and construct an MWP solver in a systematic manner, as a step towards enabling comprehension in mathematics and teaching problem solving for children in the elementary grades. We do this by (a) identifying the discourse structure of MWPs that will enable comprehension in mathematics, and (b) utilizing the information in the discourse structure towards generating the solution in a systematic manner. We build a multistage software prototype that predicts the problem type, identifies the function of sentences in each problem, and extracts the necessary information from the question to generate the corresponding mathematical equation. Our prototype has an accuracy of 86% on a large corpus of MWPs of three problem types from elementary grade mathematics curriculum.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 28th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, PACLIC 2014
EditorsPrachya Boonkwan, Wirote Aroonmanakun, Thepchai Supnithi
PublisherFaculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chulalongkorn University
Pages111-119
Number of pages9
ISBN (Electronic)9786165518871
StatePublished - 2014
Event28th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, PACLIC 2014 - Phuket, Thailand
Duration: Dec 12 2014Dec 14 2014

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 28th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, PACLIC 2014

Other

Other28th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, PACLIC 2014
Country/TerritoryThailand
CityPhuket
Period12/12/1412/14/14

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Computer Science (miscellaneous)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Machine-guided solution to mathematical word problems'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this