Research indicates that affective attitudes such as liking of a subject and confidence in one's ability within a subject predict academic performance. Generally, immigrant minority students have positive attitudes and often have low academic performance. This study examines the self-efficacy and liking of subjects of New Zealand students and analyses the relationship of those attitudes towards academic performance in mathematics, writing, and reading by self-reported ethnicity. Data were...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Student Attitudes, Minority Groups, Self Efficacy, Academic...
Computer-based technologies are now commonplace in classrooms, and the integration of these media into the teaching and learning of mathematics is supported by government policy in most developed countries. However, many questions about the impact of computer-based technologies on classroom mathematics learning remain unanswered, and debates about when and how they ought to be used continue. An increasing number of studies seek to identify the effects of technology usage on classroom learning,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Public Policy, Mathematics Education, Developed Nations, Educational Research,...
Two hundred and thirty-one students in six Grade 9 classes in two government secondary schools located near Chiang Mai, Thailand, attempted to solve the same 18 quadratic equations before and after participating in 11 lessons on quadratic equations. Data from the students' written responses to the equations, together with data in the form of transcripts of 36 interviews with 18 interviewees (a high performer, a medium performer, and a low performer from each of the six classes), were analysed....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Equations (Mathematics), Grade 9, Algebra, Mathematics...
Multiple measures administered in repeated waves within a nonequivalent dependent variables quasi-experimental design were used to test the effects of a reform-oriented instructional method called Enhanced Anchored Instruction (EAI) on the math achievement of 128 middle school students, including students with learning disabilities (LD). EAI problems are presented in multimedia and hands-on formats, a potential benefit for students with low skills in both reading and math. Overall, students of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Quasiexperimental Design, Effect Size, Ability, Learning...
A solid understanding of equivalent fractions is considered a steppingstone towards a better understanding of operations with fractions. In this article, 55 rural Australian students' conceptions of equivalent fractions are presented. Data collected included students' responses to a short written test and follow-up interviews with three students from each year. This exploratory study found most participating Years 4, 6 and 8 students were familiar with geometric area models, particularly...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Geometric Concepts, Mathematics, Mathematics Instruction, Foreign Countries, Rural...
Teachers all over the world are aware that students struggle with fractional concepts and with elementary algebra. Support for this assertion can be found in a variety of research reports. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a United States report, indicates that students have recurrently demonstrated a lack of proficiency in these areas over the past twenty years (NCES, 2000). An analysis of the 1990 NAEP in mathematics achievement found that only 46 percent of all high...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Achievement, Academic Achievement, Error Patterns, National Competency...
To date, there has been very little research-based mathematics curriculum for talented elementary students. Yet the gifted education and mathematics literature suggest support for curriculum that is both enriched and accelerated with a focus on developing conceptual understanding and mathematical thinking. Project M[superscript 3]: Mentoring Mathematical Minds is a 5-year Javits research grant project designed to create curriculum units with these essential elements for talented elementary...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Curriculum, Academically Gifted, Mathematical Concepts, Grade 3,...
This article reports the results of a national survey of mathematics achievement at the end of primary school in Vietnam. A sample of more than 72000 students were assessed from 61 provinces. The items were matched to the Vietnam Mathematics curriculum for Year 5 students. Using a skills audit of the items, a variable of Vietnamese mathematics development was defined following an item response analysis of the data. Findings reveal that the levels of mathematics achievement were relatively high...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Curriculum, Mathematics Achievement, Foreign Countries, Grade 5, Item...
The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that dynamic assessment based instruction increases children's learning by using a quasi-experimental research design in Korea. In this study, dynamic assessment is defined as a measurement method of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as well as the qualitative and quantitative diagnostic information for individual children. In addition, dynamic assessment based instruction is defined as a teaching method using the diagnostic information types in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Teaching Methods, Research Design, Experimental Groups, Data...
It is generally observed in the literature of school effectiveness research that there are two broadly categorized factors influencing pupil achievement. However, the results of the studies based on empirically collected data vary from country to country and from time to time. Premised on this inconsistency of results and gaps in knowledge of this field in Cambodian education, this study was conducted in order to examine the effect of pupil factor on their mathematics achievement. The data were...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Mathematics Tests, Student Interests, Mathematics Achievement,...
The mathematical performance of Chinese students, from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, is widely acclaimed in international comparisons of mathematics achievement. However, in the eyes of the Western educators, the environments established in Chinese schools are deemed relatively unfavourable for mathematics learning. This paper reports on a study that investigates the characteristics of effective mathematics teaching in five Shanghai schools. Findings reveal that those characteristics...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Mathematics Teachers, Mathematics Education, Mathematics...
This study investigated the interaction between students' academic background (high school grades, standardized exams, and enrollment in advanced high school courses) and how much autonomy they reported having in high school science through labs and projects. The objective was to see if students who reported experiencing more or less self-directed projects and labs performed differently in college science when prior academic background was taken into account. To provide a more solid foundation...
Topics: ERIC Archive, College Science, Grades (Scholastic), High Schools, Standardized Tests, Scores,...
The TIMSS 1995, 1999, and 2003 data have been gathered from Hong Kong before and after its sovereignty switch from the United Kingdom to China in 1997. Built on a reciprocal relation theory from the research literature, this investigation is designed to examine models of student self-concept and mathematics achievement during the political transition. Along with a perceived "brain drain" from the population migration, there was a non-monotonic change in the reciprocal relationship...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Education, Mathematics Achievement, Cultural Awareness, Foreign...
In this article, we report on a study examining those factors which contribute to the mathematics performance of a sample of children aged between 8 and 13 years. The study was designed specifically to consider the potency of a number of mathematical affective factors, as well as background characteristics (viz., gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status), on children's mathematics performance. Data were collected by surveying the children and drawing on performance ratings from their...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Achievement, Preadolescents, Early Adolescents, Children, Gender...
The perceived problem of low mathematics achievement is a concern to education leaders at all levels of PK-16 education. Results from various research raise concerns about mathematics learning of U.S. middle school students. Education leaders search for interventions to address issues related to improving mathematics achievement. This article presents findings from a middle school mathematics intervention implemented to improve students' mathematics performance. The purpose of this empirical...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Education, Mathematics Achievement, Standardized Tests, Computer Assisted...
The percentage of variance in student achievement that is explained by student SES--"poverty's power rating," as some call it--tends to be less among smaller schools than among larger schools. Smaller schools, we are told, are able to somehow disrupt the association between SES and student achievement. Using eighth-grade data for 215 public schools in Maine, I explored the hypothesis that this finding is in part a statistical artifact of the lower reliability of school-aggregated...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Poverty, Reading Achievement, Mathematics Achievement, Academic Achievement, School...
Part of a larger research project involving the study of mathematics achievement of middle and high school students in Tennessee, this report analyzes said achievement in terms of school locale and the percentage of disadvantaged (pdisadv) students enrolled in the school. Schools were designated as Rural, Large Central City, and Other Nonrural. Socioeconomic Status (SES) was determined by the percentage of students receiving federally subsidized free and reduced lunch. Schools were then placed...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Economically Disadvantaged, Mathematics Achievement, Rural Education, Poverty, Rural...
There has been abundant research examining how early life experiences affect achievement. In this article, we investigate the transition from elementary to junior high school at a developmental stage where numerous changes have an impact on students. Using nationally representative survey data, we found no differences in academic achievement between students who transitioned to grade seven from an elementary school in comparison to those who remained in the same school. We did find a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Achievement, Academic Achievement, Developmental Stages, Comparative...
This study investigates the relationship between the number of students with special needs (designated as exceptional or receiving special education services) in grade-3 classrooms in 1997-1998 and their achievement scores in reading, writing, and mathematics on Ontario's provincial assessment with their peers without special needs. When the variance due to differences in class size and socio-economic status was removed, the correlations between the number of students with special needs and the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Class Size, Socioeconomic Status, Disabilities, Foreign Countries, Special Needs...
Australian eighth-grade mathematics lessons were shown by the 1999 TIMSS Video Study to use a high proportion of problems of low procedural complexity, with considerable repetition, and an absence of deductive reasoning. Using definitions from the Video Study, this study re-investigated this "shallow teaching syndrome" by examining the problems on three topics in nine eighth-grade textbooks from four Australian states for procedural complexity, type of solving processes, degree of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Grade 8, Mathematics Instruction, Textbooks, Content Analysis, Mathematics...
This paper summarises findings and lessons from a recently conducted evaluation of an adult functional literacy program in Ghana. The study attempted to assess learners' literacy and numeracy skills, and ascertain participants' knowledge and skills in various development aspects as well as their impact. The literacy and numeracy skills assessment exercise suggested that the learners are gaining significant reading skills and modest numeracy skills, while achievements in writing appear to remain...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Literacy Education, Numeracy, Program Effectiveness, Foreign Countries, Functional...
Richard Murnane and Jennifer Steele argue that if the United States is to equip its young people with the skills essential in the new economy, high-quality teachers are more important than ever. In recent years, the demand for effective teachers has increased as enrollments have risen, class sizes have fallen, and a large share of the teacher workforce has begun to retire. Women and minorities have more career options than ever before, making it increasingly difficult to attract and retain the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Salaries, Teacher Effectiveness, Teacher Persistence, Economically...
Over the past decade many university-based teacher education programs and school districts have forged partnerships creating restructured, collaborative programs aimed at improving teaching and learning for credential candidates, as well as the children that they serve. According to data from the California Department of Education, progress is being made in raising the percentage of fully certificated teachers teaching in urban schools; however, it is unknown whether this progress will be...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Urban Schools, Professional Development Schools, Inservice Teacher Education,...
With the recent proliferation of college service-learning programs and tutoring programs, college students have more opportunities to serve as tutors in elementary schools than ever before. A number of reports have appeared in the research literature describing tutoring programs that could serve as models for tutoring initiatives. Based on this research, the authors developed a service-learning tutoring program for their undergraduate prospective teachers designed to provide support for them in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Elementary School Students, Program Effectiveness, Tutors, Elementary School...
Looping is the practice in which a teacher instructs the same group of students for at least two school years, following them from one grade level to the next. Once a "loop" of two or more years is completed, the teacher may start a new loop teaching a new group of students. This evaluation study of the practice of looping in a large urban school system was intended to explore its effect on student instructional outcomes, attendance, and retention rates, as well as to assess...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Looping (Teachers), Urban Schools, Elementary Schools, Comparative Analysis, Matched...
Girls take as many mathematics courses as boys do in high school. However, they show lower achievement in mathematics and are less likely to pursue mathematics-related fields. Women's interest and participation in computer science fields is also a concern. Moreover, women in these occupations are more likely than men to use computers for clerical and data-entry work. Researchers and educators mainly attribute females' lower performance and participation in mathematics and computer science to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Role Models, Females, Mathematics Achievement, Teacher Role, Sex Role, Computer...
In this article, the authors report on a state project designed to explore numeracy outcomes of Indigenous students. The "Supporting Indigenous students achievement in numeracy" project (2003-2004), commissioned by Education authorities in the Northern Territory, was aimed at researching the impact of the development and implementation of authentic (rich) assessment tasks on the numeracy outcomes of middle years Indigenous students in a targeted group of remote, non-urban schools. The...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Numeracy, Mathematics Achievement, Indigenous Populations, Foreign Countries, Rural...
Profiling high numeracy achievement is the South Australian Department of Education and Children's Services component of the Australian Government funded Strategic Numeracy Research and Development Initiative. This article presents the Profiling High Numeracy Achievement Project Team report on the South Australian Department of Education and Children's Services numeracy project. The South Australian project was managed collaboratively by the South Australian Primary Principals' Association and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Strategic Planning, Teacher Effectiveness, Numeracy, Teaching Methods, Foreign...
In this article, the author presents findings from a large NSW project designed to explore educational practices that "make a difference" in numeracy outcomes. The project was coordinated by the NSW Department of Education and Training, the Catholic Education Commission, the Association of Independent Schools, and research teams from the University of New England, Southern Cross University, University of Technology, Sydney, University of Western Sydney, and the University of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Catholic Schools, Private Schools, Public Schools, Elementary School Mathematics,...
Mathematics is a very important subject in Nigeria. Yet, for more than twenty years, mathematics education in Nigeria has been in a sorry state. Mathematics achievement has been very low and frustrating. So far, every effort made to save Nigerian education from the devastating effect of persistent poor mathematics achievement has failed. An experiment to address the problem of poor achievement in mathematics in Nigerian high schools was carried out in Edo State of Nigeria. Eighteen simple...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Experimental Groups, Control Groups, Mathematics Instruction, Mathematics...
Within the context of a mathematics reform effort to implement algebra in elementary schools, there is a pressure to provide results in the form of student achievement scores. However, widely-used measures of student achievement may be unrelated to the ideas and instructional practices encouraged by the reform effort. The inappropriate use of student achievement scores often leads to inaccurate inferences about the quality of instruction. This study explores the validity of inferences about...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Achievement, Academic Achievement, Algebra, Inferences, Teaching Methods,...
This article examines the influence of youth's family and school contexts to understand disparities in Canadian youth's mathematics achievement. Using hierarchical linear analysis, some of the main assumptions of social capital theory are tested using the Canadian data from the 1999 Programme for International Student Assessment. Findings revealed that many family-school contextualized effects were not significant, suggesting that researchers need to look at the conceptualization and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Human Capital, Mathematics Achievement, Family Structure, Social Capital, Student...
With the mandate of "No Child Left Behind," high-stakes achievement testing is firmly in place in every state. The few studies that have explored the effectiveness of high-stakes testing using NAEP scores have yielded mixed results. This study considered state demographic characteristics for each NAEP testing period in reading, writing, mathematics, and science from 1992 through 2002, in an effort to examine the relation of high-stakes testing policies to achievement and changes in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Federal Legislation, Academic Achievement, High Stakes Tests, Standardized Tests,...
The proportion of variance in student achievement that is explained by student SES--"poverty's power rating," as some call it--tends to be lower among smaller schools than among larger schools. Smaller schools, many claim, are able to somehow disrupt the seemingly axiomatic association between SES and student achievement. Using eighth-grade data for 216 public schools in Maine, I explored the hypothesis that this in part is a statistical artifact of the greater volatility (lower...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Poverty, Reading Achievement, Mathematics Achievement, School Size, Socioeconomic...
The purpose of this article is to comment on the prior article entitled "Examining Instruction, Achievement and Equity with NAEP mathematics data," by Sarah Theule Lubienski. That article claims that a prior article by the author suffered from three weaknesses: (1) An attempt to justify No Child Left Behind (NCLB); (2) drawing causal inferences from cross-sectional data; (3) and various statistical quibbles. The author responds to the first claim, by indicating that any mention of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Federal Legislation, Research Methodology, Inferences, Statistical Analysis, Equal...
A longstanding issue in American education is the gap in academic achievement between majority and minority students. The goal of this study is to accumulate and evaluate evidence on the relationship between state education policies and changes in the Black-White achievement gap, while addressing some of the methodological issues that have led to differences in interpretations of earlier findings. To that end, we consider the experiences of ten states that together enroll more than forty...
Topics: ERIC Archive, African American Students, Teacher Effectiveness, Academic Achievement, Grade 8,...
Issues related to student, teacher, and school accountability have been at the forefront of current educational policy initiatives. Recently, the state of Massachusetts has become a focal point in debate regarding the efficacy of highstakes accountability models based on an ostensibly large gain at 10th grade. This paper uses an IRT method for evaluating the validity of 10th grade performance gains from 2000 to 2001 on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests in English...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Change, Validity, Grade 10, Accountability, Educational Policy, Academic...
Mathematics achievement data from three longitudinally matched student cohorts were analyzed with multilevel growth models to investigate the viability of using status and growth-based indices of student achievement to examine the multi-year performance of schools. Elementary schools in a large southwestern school district were evaluated in terms of the mean achievement status and growth of students across cohorts as well as changes in the achievement status and growth of students between...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Elementary School Mathematics, Mathematics Achievement, Accountability, Cohort...
Combating the perception of many adults and children that mathematics is difficult, irrelevant and not for them is a major task for teachers and one that is not easily achieved. Attempts to place mathematics in real-life situations or to use contexts to alleviate the apparent separation of school mathematics and out-of-school mathematics have been only partially successful. If children can experience real mathematics that engages them by connecting with their interests of the moment, and also...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Achievement, Mathematics Instruction, Relevance (Education), Teaching...
Analysis of the cost-effectiveness of 29 Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) models suggests that all 29 models are less cost-effective than an alternative approach for raising student achievement, involving rapid assessment systems that test students 2 to 5 times per week in math and reading and provide rapid feedback of the results to students and teachers. Results suggest that reading and math achievement could increase approximately one order of magnitude greater for every dollar invested in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Feedback (Response), School Restructuring, Test Validity, Educational Change, School...
Using the NAEP nationally-representative data collected from eighth-graders, we investigated the relative exposure of American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) students to mathematics teachers who are knowledgeable about standards, participate in standards-based professional development, and practice standards-based instruction; American Indian/Alaska Native student reports of standards-based classroom activities; and how student reports of classroom activities and teacher reports of their...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Class Activities, Learning Activities, Grade 8, Mathematics Teachers, Professional...
We face a world in which a college degree increasingly dictates the likelihood of life success. At the same time, there has been an ever increasing population of students who have not been prepared adequately through their high school education to meet the rigors of college/university-level content. The present study investigated the effects of a web-based technology centric course, Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS, 2001), on the remediation of college freshmen enrolled in an...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Experimental Groups, Control Groups, College Freshmen, Student Attitudes, Mathematics...
The purpose of this study was to investigate a multi-faceted women's calculus course designed to retain women in advanced mathematics courses. With this research, we wanted to find out, first, in what ways students were influenced by participation in the course and, second, in what ways these influences affected their mathematics learning or willingness to take additional mathematics courses. Findings from this study demonstrate that students formed a supportive group of individuals who valued...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Education, Females, Participant Observation, Mathematics Achievement,...
A study of New Zealand secondary school students using four self-report inventories of conceptions of assessment found four robust independent measurement models. Four structural models mapped the conceptions of assessment to mathematics achievement taking into account student ethnicity and student sex. The conceptions that assessment makes students accountable and was beneficial for students loaded positively on achievement, while the conceptions that assessment is fun and assessment is...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Attitudes, Formative Evaluation, Mathematics Achievement, Foreign Countries,...
The main objective of this study was to gauge preparedness in math with achievement in first semester math for the fall 2005 intake of Manufacturing Sciences Division post-secondary program students. The data used to measure this level of preparedness was gleaned from students' high school Grade 12 (new and old curriculum) or Ontario Academic Credit (OAC) math marks and the results of a diagnostic test given to students during the first week of the fall semester. In addition, success in first...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Correlation, High Schools, Grade 12, Grades (Scholastic),...
Effective schools should be superior in both enhancing students' achievement levels and reducing the gap between high- and low-achieving students in the school. However, the focus has been placed mainly on schools' achievement levels in most school effect studies. In this article, we focused our attention upon the school-specific achievement dispersion as well as achievement level in determining effective schools. The achievement dispersion in a particular school can be captured by...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Achievement, Achievement Gap, School Effectiveness, Outcomes of Education,...
Understanding student performance in Algebra I is important because this course serves as the gateway to advanced coursework in mathematics and science through the remainder of high school and into postsecondary education. In the current study, we analyzed secondary data to evaluate the relationship between selected indicators of mathematics and the Algebra I performance of academically able and gifted learners who participated in above-level talent search testing. We used structural equation...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Homework, Academically Gifted, Structural Equation Models, Algebra, Individualized...
This study analyzes the effects of ability grouping on self-concept measures in a sample of 211 German students in their 1st year at the top track of secondary school (grade level 5; mean age: 10.46 years). 156 students, 55% of whom were female, attended regular classes, while 46 students, of whom 33% were female, attended special classes for the gifted. Students in both groups were assessed repeatedly, 3 times via self-report questionnaires and once by applying a standardized IQ test. In line...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academically Gifted, Self Concept, Special Classes, Ability Grouping, Gender...
The issue of lower than expected mathematics achievement is a concern to education leaders and policymakers at all levels of the U.S. PK-12 education system. The purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental study was to determine if there was a measurable difference in achievement on the mathematics section of the state test for students (n = 121) from a middle school in New Jersey who received computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in drill and practice computation related to the eighth grade...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Control Groups, Mathematics Curriculum, Mathematics Achievement, Academic...
The study examined the self-reported academic achievement, academic self-concept, and academic motivation of 573 immigrant and nonimmigrant adolescents in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) secondary schools. Descriptive Discriminant Analyses indicated that the immigrant adolescents had higher performance in mathematics, higher math and school self-concepts, and higher intrinsic and extrinsic motivation than their nonimmigrant counterparts. Multiple regression analyses showed that verbal...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Secondary Schools, Incentives, Academic Achievement, Student Motivation, Adolescents,...