IMPACT OF USING MATHEMATICS SOFTWARE ON STUDENTS' LEARNING ACHIEVEMENTS AT ELEMENTARY LEVEL

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of mathematics software on students learning achievements. To accomplish this purpose four research questions were imposed addressing the effect of different treatments conditions. These questions were further disintegrated into ten null hypotheses, addressing the effectiveness of mathematics software instructional method, teacher facilitated mathematics software instruction and traditional instruction (Independent variable) through achievement test (Dependent variable). The study was completed in two phases. In the first phase mathematics software for imparting instruction to Experimental-I and Experimental-II groups was developed in three content areas (Integers, Algebra and Geometry) for 6 th grade. Initially the researcher divided the contents into teaching units and modifies it to make it compatible with technology. Each teaching unit contained some material presented in the form of text, and then examples were given in order to further elaborate the concept. Afterward some exercises with step by step feedback were provided to the users and finally assessments were given to the students. These developed units were given to a team of software developers; they develop a program as per instructional design provided by the researcher. After completing the coding, the program (software) was piloted on 40 students of 6 th grade. On the other hand to ensure the quality it was given to the software quality supervisor, user interface designer and programmer to report the quality of the program. On the basis of students and experts opinion the software program was revised. viiiThe second phase of the study was experimental. To investigate the impact of developed software on students’ achievements, 312 students in four randomly selected schools of Punjab, one from each stratum were placed under three treatment conditions. The first group served the purpose of control group and was taught by traditional method of instruction. The second group (Experimental-I) was treated by mathematics software instruction, in this group the role of teacher was passive and teacher only monitored the progress and maintained the discipline in the classroom. In third group (Experimental-II) the role of teacher was to facilitate the students when they were working on program. 78 Sixth grade students of each selected school were randomly selected, and assigned to three treatment conditions after pre-testing. The intervention lasted for ten weeks, at the end, the students were post tested. An achievement test in the three content areas was developed considering three cognitive levels of revised Bloom’s taxonomy. Test was developed according to the specification and piloted to 500 students for reliability and was validated through experts, an attitude scale to measure the students liking of mathematics accompanied test. ANOVA was run to analyze the data; on pre-test score showing equality of groups. On post-test score ANOVA results indicated significant difference between groups, Scheffe, post hoc test highlighted that Experimental-II group outperformed the remaining two groups. Across gender comparison showed again the enhanced performance of Experimental-II group and across local analysis also revealed the same fact. Therefore, the researcher concluded that teacher facilitated mathematics software instruction may be a better instructional method. The researcher recommended more research in the field with different population and different subject areas.