Many students of technological universities cannot solve problems on the secondary educational level, and even have no intention to try. To help them deal with the problem, the researcher implemented metacognitive instruction and transactional mathematical writing, The researcher also conducted an experimental research with the aid of interviewing. The research findings are as follows. When solving not-so-difficult applied problems, most of the students could solve the problems. However, there is a by-peak phenomenon in post-testing. Some students were almost ignorant, but the others were almost excellent. By ANCOVA, the researcher found that the performance of the comparative group was worse than the other two groups in the post-test (p<.001), because the students in the comparative group could set up unknown variables than those in the other two groups. But the learning sheets help students indirectly. The learning sheets display each process of problem-solving clearly, so students could memorize the problem-solving processes easily, and then they earned some credits. However, the learning sheets cannot help students learn more except for mastering the processes of problem-solving. This finding is consistent with Burks' research finding (1993) for junior high school students' experiences of mathematical writing in Calculus related-rates problem-solving.
Many students of technological universities cannot solve problems on the secondary educational level, and even have no intention to try. To help them deal with the problem, the researcher implemented metacognitive instruction and transactional mathematical writing, The researcher also conducted an experimental research with the aid of interviewing. The research findings are as follows. When solving not-so-difficult applied problems, most of the students could solve the problems. However, there is a by-peak phenomenon in post-testing. Some students were almost ignorant, but the others were almost excellent. By ANCOVA, the researcher found that the performance of the comparative group was worse than the other two groups in the post-test (p<.001), because the students in the comparative group could set up unknown variables than those in the other two groups. But the learning sheets help students indirectly. The learning sheets display each process of problem-solving clearly, so students could memorize the problem-solving processes easily, and then they earned some credits. However, the learning sheets cannot help students learn more except for mastering the processes of problem-solving. This finding is consistent with Burks' research finding (1993) for junior high school students' experiences of mathematical writing in Calculus related-rates problem-solving.