Browsing by Subject "developmental"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item The effects of a computerized-algebra program on mathematics achievement of college and university freshmen enrolled in a developmental mathematics course(Texas A&M University, 2007-04-25) Taylor, Judy M.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. This problem can be seen in the number of students needing Intermediate Algebra. Students who complete remedial courses with a grade of C or better are more likely to pass their first college-level mathematics course and continue their education until they have completed all coursework needed for a degree. Students entering colleges and universities underprepared for collegiate mathematics, reading, and writing have reached epidemic proportions, with 30% of the students needing remediation in one of these areas. A portion of this problem has been identified as mathematics anxiety. Because students have habituated mathematics failure, they are aware of their deficiencies, but still desire a college education. They bring with them years of negative emotions from repeated mathematics failures. These years of negative feelings about mathematics precipitated by repeated failures are often manifested as mathematics anxiety that must be addressed in order to improve students?????? content knowledge. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a web-based technology centric course, Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS), on the remediation of college freshmen enrolled in an Intermediate Algebra class as compared to college freshmen enrolled in an Intermediate Algebra class taught using a traditional lecture method. Mathematics anxiety and attitude toward mathematics will also be investigated to determine if ALEKS can lower the anxiety associated with mathematics, as well as improve attitudes. An algebra test, mathematics anxiety rating scale, and mathematics attitude test was given to both groups of students at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester. The overall findings of this research suggested that ALEKS Intermediate Algebra students performed as well as the Control group taking a class in Intermediate Algebra taught by lecture. The anxiety of the Experimental group decreased more than the Control group, and the Experimental group??????s attitude toward mathematics increased at a greater rate than did the Control group.Item The Effects of Behaviorist and Constructivist Instruction on Student Performance in College-level Remedial Mathematics(2011-10-21) Cox, Murray WilliamThe number of American students with insufficient post-secondary mathematical abilities is increasing and the related rate of student attrition increases alongside the upsurge in college developmental programs. As a consequence, the demand for quality remedial mathematics classes is also growing. Institutions that place learners into remedial classes must also fund these same programs and are increasingly faced with disgruntled students, the appearance of having lower standards, and a demoralized faculty. The legal implications concerning placement and access have gone as far as litigation over student rights. The threat of performance based funding means that educational institutions are in need of demonstrably effective mathematical remediation techniques. This study examines the effect of pedagogical style for college-level remedial mathematics students and the effect of the chosen assessment method in determining student success. Specifically, this study explains student achievement for college students exposed to a pedagogical style from either the constructivist or behaviorist foundation as measured with short-answer, rote-knowledge questions and with long-answer, deductive-reasoning questions. Furthermore, consideration of student self-efficacy is investigated in order to account for any variation in instructional method. Ultimately, this study describes the effects of both instruction type and assessment method on the success of college-level remedial mathematics students. The findings in this study reveal quality teaching is of paramount importance in educating the remedial college student. Students from both methods, with instruction being performed with high fidelity, demonstrated statistically significant improvement over the semester. Moreover, the findings in this study further reveal that remedial students with strong reasons to succeed (combined with the quality teaching method) find success in the developmental mathematics classroom regardless of assessment method. In fact, though students tend to score higher on short-answer questions than extended-answer questions, the amount of improvement after a semester of quality teaching is nearly equal in question types under both instructional methods.