Mathematical word problem-solving skills are crucial for students across their lives, yet solving such tasks poses challenges for many. Therefore, understanding the characteristics of mathematical word problems that are associated with students’ performance is important. The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the effects of linguistic and numerical task characteristics associated with mathematical word problem-solving performance among elementary school-aged children (Grades 1 to 6). The systematic review was based on five electronic databases and citation searching. Reporting was conducted following The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). The findings (K = 69) showed that five of the six investigated linguistic task characteristics (i.e., the position of the unknown, schematic structure, irrelevant information, realistic considerations, and lexical consistency) and one of the two numerical task characteristics (i.e., number of operations) were related (g = 0.39 to 4.26) with elementary school-aged children’s mathematical word problem-solving. However, the findings did not provide support for a general association between a familiar situational narrative or the required operation with mathematical word problem-solving. The findings highlight that elementary school-aged children especially struggle with mathematical word problems requiring realistic considerations or multiple mathematical operations, containing lexical inconsistency, and problems in which the position of the unknown is the first value. This further understanding of elementary schoolers’ word problem-solving performance may guide the design of appropriate and progressive instruction and assessment tools and steer research into the interactions within task characteristics and with individual characteristics.

数学单词解决问题的能力对学生的一生都至关重要，但解决此类任务对许多人来说也带来了挑战。因此，了解与学生表现相关的数学单词问题的特征很重要。本系统评价和荟萃分析的目的是评估与小学生（1 至 6 年级）数学单词问题解决表现相关的语言和数字任务特征的影响。系统评价基于五个电子数据库和引文检索。报告按照系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目 （PRISMA） 进行。研究结果 （K = 69） 表明，调查的语言任务特征 （即未知的位置、示意图结构、不相关的信息、现实考虑和词汇一致性） 中的 5 个和两个数字任务特征中的 1 个（即操作次数）与小学生的数学单词问题解决相关 （g = 0.39 至 4.26）。然而，这些发现并没有为熟悉的情境叙述或所需的操作与数学单词问题解决之间的一般关联提供支持。研究结果强调，小学生尤其难以解决需要现实考虑或多种数学运算的数学单词问题，包含词汇不一致，以及未知位置为第一个值的问题。 这种对小学生单词问题解决能力的进一步理解可能会指导设计适当和渐进的教学和评估工具，并引导研究任务特征内部和与个人特征的相互作用。