Tongan students'achievement and motivation following a mathematics cognitive acceleration program

This paper presents the implementation and evaluation of a Cognitive Acceleration in Mathematics Education (CAME) program in a sample of Tongan secondary schools in regards to students’ achievements,motivation and self-regulation. The program materials were adapted to the Tongan educational context and participating teachers were supported for eight months. This study employed a mixed-methods and quasi-experimental design with 219 Year 8 students as the experimental group and 119 Year 8 students as the comparison group. There were statistically significant differences in the mean scores between the pre-test and post-test of both achievement and learning engagement instruments with the CAME students, but not with the comparison students who studied the same mathematics content with their regular Tongan program. These results indicate that learning mathematics under the CAME program had a positive effect on levels of students’ mathematics achievement, motivation and self-regulation. Students also reported changes to the ways they learned mathematics