The relationship between timed drill practice and the increase of automaticity of basic multiplication facts for regular education sixth graders

By the time students transition from elementary to middle school, many do not demonstrate mastery of recalling basic math facts. This 8-week quasi-experimental quantitative study, based in cognitive development and theories of the construction of memory, used a 3-level independent variable experimental design to determine if there was a relationship between teachers\u27 implementation of timed drill practices and the students\u27 level of automaticity with regard to basic multiplication facts in 9 sixth-grade, regular education math classes. The control group received no intervention, the first treatment group received weekly timed drill practice for 3 minutes, and a second treatment group received daily timed drill practice for 3 minutes. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures were used to measure the differences in pretest and posttest scores among the 3 treatment groups. Although no significant difference was found among the 3 groups\u27 pretest performance, a significant difference among posttest performance was found. Scheffe\u27 post hoc analysis revealed that the students who were administered daily timed practice drills performed statistically higher on the posttest than did the control group and first treatment group. Similarly, students in the weekly timed practice drill group had statistically significant higher gain scores than did students in the no treatment group. This study may lead to a shift in teachers\u27 thought and practice regarding use of timed practice drills with the result of an increase of automaticity of basic math facts. Improved automaticity may lead to positive social changes including superior performance in math for regular education students that can lead to an increased sense of self-efficacy and higher graduation rates