The Effects of Instruction in Mathematics Vocabulary Upon Students\u27 Achievement in Problem Solving

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness or an intensive emphasis on the reading vocabulary of mathematics as an important part of instruction in the area of verbal problem solving in the fifth and sixth grades. The study was conducted with thirteen fifth and sixth grade pupils from Barnard School, one of the four elementary schools in Unified District #298, Lincoln County, Kansas. These pupils had completed two consecutive nine months of schoolwork at the Barnard School. The same method of instruction, texts, and procedures were used by the teacher during the 1970-71 as during the 1969-70 school year, but with an additional study of the mathematical vocabulary as an important part of instruction in all areas of verbal problem solving in arithmetic. Each group received a total of sixty minutes of arithmetic instruction and had fifteen minutes of free reading of other mathematics texts, or drill each day. Scores on mathematics achievement for the year 1969-70 and for the year 1970-71 were obtained from the Metropolitan Mathematics Test, Elementary Form A and Form B. Form A was given the first week in October and Form B was given the last week in April. The 1969-70 and the 1970-71 groups of children were first compared on the performance of each group as a whole according to the mean growth for past year with mean growth for present year. By using a t test for significance of difference between the Deans of the pre-test scores on the Metropolitan Mathematics Tests and the post - test scores on the Metropolitan Mathematics Tests. The means were found to be significantly different. Spearman\u27s Rank Order of Correlation was computed to determine the relationship between the grade achievement of the control group and the experimental group. The test revealed that there was low relationship. The increase in the mean growth for the present year showed that an extensive emphasis on the reading vocabulary of mathematics was an important part of instruction in the area of verbal problem solving in the fifth and sixth grades