The effects of sex, level of ability, and differential amounts of practice on immediate and delayed achievement in mathematics

• Main Author: O'Rielly, Kevin Patrick.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 1978
• Subjects: Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/7913/; https://research.library.mun.ca/7913/1/ORielly_KevinPatrick.pdf; https://research.library.mun.ca/7913/3/ORielly_KevinPatrick.pdf

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of drill and practice to mathematics achievement in skill and concept acquisition in grade five. To do this the experimenter examined the following major questions. Do any of the variables of sex, level of ability, and amount of practice result in significantly different achievement on an immediate posttest of concepts and skills or on a delayed posttest? In addition, are there any significant interactions among any of these variables on the immediate or delayed posttests? -- To investigate these questions a unit on addition of fractions for grade five was developed, implemented, and evaluated. The study was conducted using 140 grade five students in five classes from both urban and rural Newfoundland communities. Students in each class were randomly divided into three groups. Each group was randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions: five practice exercises, ten practices exercises, or fifteen practice exercises. Classes were held once a day for a total of fifteen class sessions. -- To determine the students' achievement on the unit, two tests were administered. The first, the immediate posttest, was given at the end of the fifteen class sessions following a review session. The second, the delayed posttest, was given one month later to test retention of the material covered in the class sessions. Both of these tests were constructed by the experimenter and were designed to test whether the behavioral objectives of the unit had been achieved. In an attempt to eliminate inadequacies, both the addition of fractions unit and the tests were piloted in a grade six classroom prior to conducting the study. -- The data were collected and analyzed using a three factor analysis of variance procedure. Treatment differences were significant at the .05 level of significance on the immediate posttest, but not on the delayed posttest. To determine where the significant differences lay specifically, a Scheffé test was performed on the data. The results of the ...