The effect of spreadsheet and dynamic geometry software on the achievement and self-efficacy of 7th-grade students

Background

Since the early 1980s, there has been a growing interest in the potentiality of computers as facilitators of students' learning. The importance of using technology effectively as a learning tool has been emphasized by many researchers. However, finding good software that encourages pupils to explore and express mathematical ideas is becoming a crucial issue.

Purpose

This paper investigates the effect of spreadsheet and dynamic geometry software on the mathematics achievement and mathematics self-efficacy of 7th-grade students. The study further examines the gender differences with respect to computer self-efficacy, mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics achievement. The relationship among these three constructs is also investigated.

Sample

The study consisted of 64 7th-grade students from three different classes including all the 7th- graders in a school, which is located in an upper-middle-class area in Ankara, Turkey. Study participants were aged from 12 to 13. In total, the number of female and male students was equal. In this study, purposive sampling was used since the school where the study took place was well equipped in terms of computer laboratories and technological devices.

Design and methods

The evaluation used an experimental design where two software programs, Excel and Autograph, were used in experimental groups separately, and a control group took traditional-based instruction without using any technological tools such as a computer or calculator. The study was carried out during the spring semester of the 2001/02 academic year, where three instructional methods of study: Autograph-based instruction, spreadsheet-based instruction and traditionally based instruction, were randomly assigned to the three classes. The Mathematics achievement test was used to assess the students' performance on mathematics. In order to determine the self-efficacy expectation of the students with respect to mathematics and computers, a Mathematics self-efficacy scale and Computer self-efficacy scale were developed respectively. Analysis of covariance, bivariate correlations and t-test were used to analyse outcome data.

Results

Results revealed that the Autograph group and Traditional group had significantly greater mean scores than the Excel group with respect to mathematics achievement. The Autograph group had significantly greater mean scores than the Traditional group, while no significant mean difference was found between the Autograph and Excel groups and between the Excel and Traditional groups with respect to mathematics self-efficacy. No significant mean difference was found between boys and girls with respect to mathematics achievement and mathematics self-efficacy. On the other hand, boys had significantly greater mean scores than girls with respect to computer self-efficacy. In addition, significant correlations were found among efficacy scores and achievement.

Conclusions

The evidence suggests that students showed great enthusiasm for Autograph. Students in the Autograph group had the highest scores compared to other groups regarding mathematics achievement and mathematics self-efficacy. In addition, boys reported significantly higher scores with respect to computer self-efficacy where, during the Autograph-based instruction and spreadsheet-based instruction, boys were more willing to solve activities using computers compared to girls. On the other hand, treatments seemed not to have any effect on gender regarding mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics achievement.     

Effects of reading picture books on kindergartners’ mathematics performance

This article describes a field experiment with a pretest–posttest control group design which investigated the potential of reading picture books to children for supporting their mathematical understanding. The study involved 384 children from 18 kindergarten classes in 18 schools in the Netherlands. During three months, the children in the nine experimental classes were read picture books. Data analysis revealed that, when controlled for relevant covariates, the picture book reading programme had a positive effect (d = .13) on kindergartners’ mathematics performance as measured by a project test containing items on number, measurement and geometry. Compared to the increase from pretest to posttest in the control group, the increase in the experimental group was 22% larger. No significant differential intervention effects were found between subgroups based on kindergarten year, age, home language, socio-economic status and mathematics and language ability, but a significant intervention effect was found for girls and not for boys.     

USING COMBINATORIAL APPROACH TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ LEARNING OF THE DISTRIBUTIVE LAW AND MULTIPLICATIVE IDENTITIES

This article reports an alternative approach, called the combinatorial model, to learning multiplicative identities, and investigates the effects of implementing results for this alternative approach. Based on realistic mathematics education theory, the new instructional materials or modules of the new approach were developed by the authors. From the combinatorial activities based on the things around daily life, the teaching modules assisted students to establish their concept of the distributive law, and to generalize it via the process of progressive mathematizing. The subjects were two classes of 8th graders. The experimental group (n = 32) received a combinatorial approach to teaching by the first author using a problem-centered with double-cycles instructional model, while the control group (n = 30) received a geometric approach to teaching, from the textbook by another teacher who uses lecturing. Data analyses were both qualitative and quantitative. The findings indicated that the experimental group had a better performance than the control group in cognition, such as for the inner-school achievement test, mid-term examination, symbol manipulation, and unfamiliar problem-solving: also in affection, such as the tendency to engage in the mathematics activities and enjoy mathematical thinking.     

The Study of Number Sense: Realistic Activities Integrated into Third-Grade Math Classes in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

The authors compared the performance of students who received integration of number sense activities in instruction with students who received instruction using regular mathematics textbooks. Two classes of third-grade students (N = 60) were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Students in each group were given a pretest, post I test, and post II test, and were interviewed individually across 20 class periods of intervention. Results showed that the performance of the students in the experimental group was significantly higher than those in the control group. The interview data also showed that the students in the experimental group performed better than students in the control group in flexible and effective ways to use number sense.     

Experimental evaluation of the effects of cooperative learning on kindergarten children's mathematics ability

The aims of this study were to investigate the effects of cooperative learning on the mathematics ability and cooperative social behaviours of kindergarten children and to evaluate teachers’ perspectives on the application of the program. One control (n = 17) and one experimental group (n = 17) were studied. In the experimental group, a curriculum based on cooperative learning method activities was used. Significant improvements in mathematics abilities were found for children in the experimental group that utilised cooperative learning.     

Improving quality and equity in schools in socially disadvantaged areas

Background: Recent effectiveness studies have investigated the relationship between two dimensions of effectiveness – namely, quality and equity. Specifically, the question of whether effective schools can also reduce the initial differences in student outcomes attributed to student background factors has been examined. In this context, the Dynamic Approach to School Improvement (DASI) makes use of theory and the research findings of effectiveness studies to try to improve school effectiveness in terms of quality and equity.

Purpose: This study aimed to examine whether the implementation of DASI in primary schools in socially disadvantaged areas in four European countries (Cyprus, England, Greece and Ireland) was able to promote student learning outcomes in mathematics and to reduce the impact of student background factors on student achievement in mathematics.

Design and methods: A sample of 72 primary schools across the four countries was randomly split into experimental and control groups. At the beginning and at the end of the school year, mathematics tests were administered to all students of Grades 4–6 (n = 5560; student ages 9–12 years). The experimental group made use of DASI. Within-country multilevel regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the impact of the intervention and search for interaction effects between the use of DASI and student background factors on final achievement.

Results: In each country, the experimental group achieved better results in mathematics than the control group. At the beginning of the intervention, the achievement gap based on socio-economic status (SES) was equally large in the experimental and the control groups. Only in the experimental group did the achievement gap based on SES become smaller. However, DASI was not found to have an effect on equity when the equity dimension was examined by focusing on the achievement gap based on either gender or ethnicity.

Conclusions: Implications of findings are drawn and the importance of measuring equity in terms of student achievement gaps based on different background factors, rather than only on SES, is emphasised. We propose the evaluation of the impact of interventions on promoting equity by the use of various criteria.     

The effects of cooperative learning on Turkish elementary students’ mathematics achievement and attitude towards mathematics using TAI and STAD methods

This study was designed to compare the effects of Team Assisted Individualization (TAI) and Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD) on fourth grade students’ academic achievement in and attitudes towards mathematics. Seven classes of a school were randomly selected for this experimental study. Two of these were given instruction through TAI; two through STAD, and the remaining three were treated as a control group. For the purpose of the data analysis regarding academic achievement, the 3 X 1 covariance analysis was used to compare the groups. As a result of this comparison, both the TAI and STAD methods were found to have positive effects (d = 1.003 for TAI and d = 0.40 for STAD) on students’ academic achievement in mathematics. The pairwise comparisons showed that the TAI method had a more significant effect than the STAD method. The scores for the attitude towards mathematics were analyzed by using non-parametric statistics. As a result of this analysis, no significant difference was observed regarding students’ attitudes towards mathematics.     

Does chess instruction improve mathematical problem-solving ability? Two experimental studies with an active control group

It has been proposed that playing chess enables children to improve their ability in mathematics. These claims have been recently evaluated in a meta-analysis (Sala & Gobet, 2016, Educational Research Review, 18, 46–57), which indicated a significant effect in favor of the groups playing chess. However, the meta-analysis also showed that most of the reviewed studies used a poor experimental design (in particular, they lacked an active control group). We ran two experiments that used a three-group design including both an active and a passive control group, with a focus on mathematical ability. In the first experiment (N = 233), a group of third and fourth graders was taught chess for 25 hours and tested on mathematical problem-solving tasks. Participants also filled in a questionnaire assessing their meta-cognitive ability for mathematics problems. The group playing chess was compared to an active control group (playing checkers) and a passive control group. The three groups showed no statistically significant difference in mathematical problem-solving or metacognitive abilities in the posttest. The second experiment (N = 52) broadly used the same design, but the Oriental game of Go replaced checkers in the active control group. While the chess-treated group and the passive control group slightly outperformed the active control group with mathematical problem solving, the differences were not statistically significant. No differences were found with respect to metacognitive ability. These results suggest that the effects (if any) of chess instruction, when rigorously tested, are modest and that such interventions should not replace the traditional curriculum in mathematics.     

Effects of metacognitive instruction on mathematics achievement and attitude towards mathematics of low mathematics achievers

An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of metacognitive instruction on mathematics achievement and attitude towards mathematics of low mathematics achievers at a middle school in the North‐West Province of South Africa. Forty standard (std) 7 pupils were identified whose non‐verbal general ability and previous mathematics achievements were significantly lower than those of other std 7 pupils. These subjects were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group. Metacognitive strategies in solving mathematical problems related to four mathematics topics were individually taught to the members of the experimental group, while the pupils in the control group were taught the four mathematics topics through the conventional method of teaching mathematics. The comparisons of pretest and posttest measures of general ability, metacognitive awareness, attitude towards mathematics, and mathematics achievement revealed that the posttest scores of all the four variables for the experimental group were significantly higher than those for the control group.     

Spatial ability and achievement in introductory physics

This research was undertaken to clarify the nature of the relationship between visual-spatial abilities and achievement in science courses. A related purpose was to determine what influence visual-spatial abilities have on the high attribution rate characteristic of many introductory college-level science courses. Three sections of introductory college level physics (S = 136) and one nonscience liberal arts section (S = 52) received pre- and postmeasures of visual-spatial ability in the areas of perception, orientation, and visualization. Increases in visual-spatial abilities were greatest with an experimental section that received a spatial intervention. These gains were related to test items that utilized graphical form and to laboratory work. Substantial gains in visual-spatial ability were also registered by a placebo and by control sections. These increases suggest that taking introductory physics improves visual-spatial abilities. Although students who withdrew from the course demonstrated mathematics skills comparable to those of students who completed the course, their scores on perception tests were appreciably lower. Visual-spatial scores of the liberal arts group were lower than those of the physics sections, suggesting that visual-spatial ability influences course selection.     

Collaborative learning with scientific approach and multiple intelligence: Its impact toward math learning achievement

Abstract

This study examined the effect of collaborative learning with a scientific approach (SA) on the learning achievement in mathematics viewed from the students’ multiple intelligences. This study compared two types of collaborative learning models, Three Steps Interview (TSI), and Think Pair Share (TPS). The participants of this study were grade 8 students of Secondary Schools in Sukoharjo, Central Java, Indonesia (N?=?262). This study was a quasi-experimental study with a 3?×?3 factorial design. The results of the study can be concluded as follows. (1) TSI with a scientific approach got better math learning achievement than TPS with a scientific approach and classical with a scientific approach. Besides, TPS with a scientific approach got better learning achievement than classical with a scientific approach. (2) Students with logical-mathematical intelligence got better math learning achievement than students with linguistic intelligence and students with interpersonal intelligence, students with linguistic intelligence got better math learning achievement than students with interpersonal intelligence.     

Graphic abilities in relation to mathematical and scientific ability in adolescents

Background:?The study investigated a small range of cognitive abilities, related to visual-spatial intelligence, in adolescents. This specific range of cognitive abilities was termed ‘graphic abilities’ and defined as a range of abilities to visualise and think in three dimensions, originating in the domain of visual-spatial intelligence, and related to visual perception and the ability to represent space. The educational importance of graphic abilities has received minimal attention from the educational community and, consequently, plays a limited role in educational practice.

Purpose:?In order to understand the particular educational importance of this range of cognitive abilities, we investigated how graphic abilities are connected with the performance and the subject preference of adolescents in several academic areas. Our hypotheses were, first, that there is a high degree of correlation between developed graphic abilities and high performance in mathematics and science, and second, that there is a high degree of correlation between developed graphic abilities and personal subject preference in these two areas.

Sample:?The sample consisted of 60 14-year-old students (30 girls and 30 boys) attending a public secondary school in a small town in northern Greece. The entire sample had followed the same mathematics courses, which did not involve any geometry or spatial representation tasks.

Design and methods:?We identified and defined a specific range of three graphic abilities, related to visual-spatial intelligence, and we investigated these abilities in the sample through several visual-spatial tasks designed for the study and measured the sample's performance in these tasks. The degree of adolescents' graphic performance (that is, the performance in these visual-spatial tasks) was correlated with their performance in mathematics and science and with their subject preference (mathematics, science and language).

Results:?Our findings confirmed both hypotheses. A high degree of correlation was found between developed graphic abilities and high performance in mathematics, and a lower but still significant degree of correlation was found between developed graphic abilities and high performance in science. The findings support the second hypothesis as well, suggesting that children with developed graphic abilities reported that their favourite subject was mathematics and second favourite subject was science.

Conclusions:?The research suggested that there is a particular relation between the level of graphic abilities performance and children's performance and in preference for mathematics and science. That is, children with developed visual perception, visual thought and representational skills are actually better with numbers and physical concepts. This particular relation might be relevant to the overall cognitive development of children, especially with respect to the increasingly developing communication technologies, and it would seem to deserve more attention and extended research from the educational community. The authorial position is that education would gain from a better understanding of: the nature of graphic abilities, how we can develop this range of abilities and how the development of visual thought and graphic expression contributes to several curriculum subjects.     

The Effect on Reasoning,Reading and Number Performance of Computer‐presented Critical Thinking Activities in Five‐year‐old Children

Summary The performance of 64 five‐year‐old children on Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices, the Break‐through to Literacy Reading Scheme, and a test of mathematics was noted, and the children were designated as high or low initial performance on each by division at the medians. They were then randomly divided within sexes into two groups. A treatment group worked, over a 13 week period, through 32 computer presented problem‐solving activities while a control group did alternative activities. All the children were then re‐tested. The results showed a significantly greater improvement between the pre‐ and post‐test for the treatment group than for the control group on Raven's Matrices for both high and low initial performance. For reading the low initial attainment treatment subjects improved significantly more than the control. In mathematics there was no significant effect of the treatment. The results were discussed in terms of the skills underlying reading and number work.     

The effect of video-based approach on prospective teachers’ ability to analyze mathematics teaching

This is an intervention study that explored the effect of using video lesson analysis methodology (VLAM) on the ability of prospective middle/high school mathematics teachers to analyze mathematics teaching. The sample of the study consisted of 26 female prospective mathematics teachers enrolled in a methods course at the United Arab Emirates University. The participants were divided equally into two groups, experimental and control. The experimental group was involved in video lesson analysis where they analyzed ten video lessons throughout the semester. The group members interacted via discussion forums through Blackboard technology. Both groups wrote analyses of two video lessons, one before the intervention program and another at the end of it. It was found that the intervention remarkably improved the ability to analyze mathematics teaching of the experimental group while little improvement occurred to the control group. Implications for teacher education programs are discussed.     

Immediate and delayed effects of meta-cognitive instruction on regulation of cognition and mathematics achievement

The present study addressed two research questions: (a) the extent to which students who were exposed to meta-cognitive instruction are able to implement meta-cognitive processes in a delayed, stressful situation, in our case—being examined on the matriculation exam; and (b) whether students preparing themselves for the matriculation exam in mathematics, attain a higher level of mathematics achievement and meta-cognitive awareness (knowledge about cognition and regulation of cognition) as a result of being exposed to meta-cognitive instruction. Participants were 61 Israeli high school students who studied mathematics for four-point credit on the matriculation exam (middle level). About half of the students (N = 31) were assigned to meta-cognitive instruction, called IMPROVE, and the others (N = 30) studied with no explicit meta-cognitive guidance (control group). Analyses included both quantitative and qualitative methods. The later was based on students’ interviews, conducted about a couple of months after the end of the intervention, immediately after students completed the matriculation exam in mathematics. Results indicated that IMPROVE students outperformed their counterparts on mathematics achievement and regulation of cognition, but not on knowledge about cognition. Furthermore, during the matriculation exam, IMPROVE students executed different kinds of cognitive regulation processes than the control students. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.     

Effects of mathematics learning through children's literature on math achievement and dispositional outcomes

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of using children's literature to promote mathematics learning. Fifty-seven kindergarteners were randomly assigned to either a control group or an experimental group. The experimental group received mathematics related storybook reading and discussion time and played with mathematics materials that were related to the storybook content during free play. The control group had ordinary storybook reading time and played with mathematics materials unrelated to the storybook content. The Learning Readiness Test and the Early Mathematics Achievement Test were administered. Four mathematics tasks were also given to compare the mathematics achievement of the two groups. The children's choice of favorite corners, the time spent, and the number of children who played in the mathematics corner were investigated also to measure children's disposition toward doing mathematics. The results showed that more children in the experimental group liked the mathematics comer, chose mathematics tasks, and spent more time in the mathematics corner. Furthermore, the experimental group did significantly better than the control group in the classification, number combination, and shape tasks, and there were qualitative differences in the content analysis.     

A comparative study of the effects of using dynamic geometry software and physical manipulatives on the spatial visualisation skills of pre‐service mathematics teachers

The study compared the effects of dynamic geometry software and physical manipulatives on the spatial visualisation skills of first‐year pre‐service mathematics teachers. A pre‐ and post‐test quasi‐experimental design was used. The Purdue Spatial Visualisation Test (PSVT) was used for the pre‐ and post‐test. There were three treatment groups. The first group (n = 34) used Dynamic Geometry Software (DGS) Cabri 3D as a virtual manipulative and the second group (n = 32) used physical manipulatives. In the control group (n = 30), the students received traditional instruction. The results of the study showed that physical manipulatives and DGS‐based types of instruction are more effective in developing the students' spatial visualisation skills than traditional instruction. In addition, students in the DGS‐based group performed better than the physical manipulative‐based group in the views section of the PSVT.     

Performance in solving arithmetic problems: a comparison of children with different levels of achievement in mathematics and reading

The aim of the present study was to investigate the performance in arithmetic related to achievement levels in reading and mathematics. Basic arithmetical facts and multi‐step calculations were examined. The participants were 941 pupils aged 8 (N = 415), 10 (N = 274) and 13 (N = 252) years. The pupils were divided into four groups by standardized achievement tests. One group showed low achievement in both mathematics and reading (MLRL), a second group showed low achievement in mathematics only (ML‐only), a third group in reading only (RL‐only) and a fourth group showed normal achievement in both mathematics and reading (NA). The ML‐only and the MLRL groups did not differ significantly in basic arithmetical facts at any age level, but both groups performed below the RL‐only and NA groups. The two latter groups also performed similarly at all year levels. In multi‐step calculation all groups differed significantly at the lowest age level, with the NA as the group with the best achievement, followed by RL‐only, ML‐only and the MLRL group. At the two highest age levels the relations between the groups, in multi‐step calculation, were in accordance with the results regarding basic facts. The findings indicate, for both normal and low general mathematical ability, that low achievement in reading to a small extent interferes with the pupils’ development of arithmetic performance     

The impacts of an early mathematics curriculum on oral language and literacy

Competence in early mathematics is crucial for later school success. Although research indicates that early mathematics curricula improve children's mathematics skill, such curricula's impacts on oral language and early literacy skills are not known. This project is the first to investigate the effects of an intensive pre-kindergarten mathematics curriculum, Building Blocks, on the oral language and letter recognition of children participating in a large-scale cluster randomized trial project. Results showed no evidence that children who were taught mathematics using the curriculum performed differently than control children who received the typical district mathematics instruction on measures of letter recognition, and on two of the oral language (story retell) subtests, sentence length and inferential reasoning (emotive content). However, children in the Building Blocks group outperformed children in the control group on four oral language subtests: ability to recall key words, use of complex utterances, willingness to reproduce narratives independently, and inferential reasoning (practical content).     

Students as Virtual Scientists: An exploration of students' and teachers' perceived realness of a remote electron microscopy investigation

Remote access technologies enable students to investigate science by utilizing scientific tools and communicating in real-time with scientists and researchers with only a computer and an Internet connection. Very little is known about student perceptions of how real remote investigations are and how immersed the students are in the experience. This study, conducted with high school students and their teachers, explored the impact of students' perception of ownership and virtual presence during a remote investigation using a scanning electron microscope. Students were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups: students able to select their own insect to use during the remote investigation, and students that did not select their own insects to view during the remote investigation. The results of this study showed that students in the experimental group who had choice and ownership of their insect reported being more present (less distracted) during the remote investigation than students in the control group, whereas students in the control group reported controlling the technology was easier than the experimental group. Students indicated the remote investigation was very real; however, the teachers of these students were less likely to describe the investigation as being real. The results of this study have practical implications for designing remote learning environments.