The study sought to assess the effect of guided discovery approach of teaching Junior High School Form 2 students’ ability of translating and solving of linear equation in one variable word problems. Data were collected by administering pre-test and post-test of five linear equation in one variable word problems to 23 students. The purpose of the pre-test and post-test assessment was to measure change in students’ knowledge and skills of translating and solving linear equation in one variable word problems. The results revealed that majority of the students failed to identify the unknown part of the problem, represent it with defined variable and write correct expression and then transform the expression into linear equations, find the value for the variable and substitute the value of the variable into the equation to verify their answers. With the implementation of the guided discovery approach, the students made sufficient gains in post-test scores when they solved five linear equation in one variable word problems. Paired sample t-tests analysis also revealed a significantly increased the pre-service teachers’ abilities of translating linear equation one variable word problems into algebraic forms and solving them. Consequently, it was recommended that mathematics teachers should make frantic effort and teach students the skills of identifying unknown part of linear equation word problems and representing with defined variable, and then form linear equations. Since one of the most important stages of problem-solving heuristic reasoning processes is to look back, students should be encouraged to make it a point to verify their answers and choose the right answer(s) only.
Keywords: Comprehension, Processing, Transformation, encoding, guided discovery
