Impact of Use of Technology in Mathematics Lessons On Student Achievement and Attitudes
Impact of Use of Technology in Mathematics Lessons On Student Achievement and Attitudes
Impact of Use of Technology in Mathematics Lessons On Student Achievement and Attitudes
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All content following this page was uploaded by Hüseyin S. Yaratan on 06 January 2016.
Ramadan Eyyam, Foreign Languages and English Preparatory School, Eastern Mediterranean
University; Hüseyin S. Yaratan, Educational Sciences Department, Eastern Mediterranean University.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Ramadan Eyyam, Eastern
Mediterranean University, Gazimağusa, via Mersin 10, Turkey. Email: [email protected]
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32 USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN MATHEMATICS
Method
Design
We chose mathematics as the subject area to be investigated. In the classes,
all groups completed a pretest at the beginning of instruction and a posttest
after instruction. In the experimental groups, we provided the teachers with
instructional technology to be used while teaching, whereas the control groups
were taught by traditional methods, with no technology being used.
The topics being taught in the mathematics lessons were completely new
to the learners. We provided teachers who regularly teach these lessons at the
school with the lesson plans, all necessary materials, and pre- and posttests. We
designed the lessons carefully, according to Gagne’s nine instructional events
(Gredler, 2005; Reigeluth, 1987). The only difference in the design of the lessons
for the experimental and control groups was that technology was included in
the lessons for the experimental groups, whereas no technology was used in
the design of lessons for control groups. A laptop with multimedia and a data
projector were used in experimental groups, and the lessons were transferred to
PowerPoint slides and videos, pictures, flash cards, animations, and so on. These
technological aids were provided with the aims of increasing student motivation,
making learning more meaningful and enjoyable, maximizing visualization
and maintaining students’ attention on the lesson. Consequently, neither books
nor the handouts prepared by the teachers were used during the lessons for the
experimental groups.
Measures
Pretest and posttest. These tests were prepared by obtaining expert opinion.
The pretest for mathematics, which was in an open-ended question format,
comprised 10 questions, and it was used to assess the prior knowledge of students
about the geometry topics that they would be studying during the lessons that
formed our research. Students were asked to read each question and write their
answers in the space provided below the question. The posttest had the same
format and topics as the pretest.
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4
Eigenvalue
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Component number
In the scree plot there were two components in the sharp descending part of the
plot (see Figure 1). The loadings of the two factors of Attitudes of Students and
Preference of Students are presented in Table 1. Items 6, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10 were
loaded on the Attitude of Students factor and items 2, 11, 1, and 9 were loaded
on the Preference of Students factor.
USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN MATHEMATICS 37
Table 1. Items Representing Attitudes and Preferences of Students
Attitudes Preferences
ITEM 6 .832
ITEM 4 .779
ITEM 5 .771
ITEM 3 .755
ITEM 7 .521
ITEM 8 .513
ITEM 10 .490
ITEM 2 .917
ITEM 11 .755
ITEM 1 .639
ITEM 9 .426
For the measure, we computed the Cronbach’s alpha () value for the internal
consistency estimate of reliability, and the computed value was .91 for the whole
scale, for the attitude items the Cronbach’s alpha value () was .88, and for the
preference items the Cronbach’s value () was .77, indicating that the measure
had good reliability.
Results
n Actual M Adjusted M
As can be seen in Table 5, after adjusting the progress test scores, there was a
significant difference between the experimental and control groups, F(1, 73) =
7.12, p = .024 > .05). In other words, the use of technology in the lessons with
the experimental groups resulted in these students receiving higher scores in their
mathematics tests.
Table 5. ANCOVA Results for the Difference Between Experimental and Control Groups
No 21 26.6 13 16.5
Indecisive 34 43.0 28 35.4
Yes 24 30.4 38 48.1
Total 79 100.0 79 100.0
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