This study is relevant not only to issues of policy but to issues of research. The study
will add to what is known about teaching techniques for word-problem solving. Investigation
by researchers into instructional techniques for problem solving has ranged quite widely over
the past 40 years (Lester, 1994). The literature review of this study will show there exists a
substantial body of evidence demonstrating that students improve their problem-solving
performance when they use visual representations depicting the problem at hand (Kintsch &
Greeno, 1985). Along with visual representations, schema-based instruction, or SBI, will be
shown to be an effective teaching technique that asks students to categorize problems by type
before they begin to actually solve the problem (A.K. Jitendra, 2010).