The Psychology of Solving Algebra Word Problems

The psychology of solving algebra word problems might seem like an unimportant topic. But i am interested in it because it seems to be an example of the difficulty observed with transferring what we have learned in school to real life problems. Word problems are hard, yes, but they are hard precisely because they ask us to transform real situations into those that are solvable with methods learned in school. How do we do this? Read explores many different factors that contribute to the difficulty of word problems.