A Study To Examine The Effect Of Curriculum Materials On The Ability Of General Mathematics Students To Solve Verbal Problems

The Statement of the Problem. What is the effect of the type of instructional materials on the acquisition of verbal problem-solving skills of general mathematics students?;The Assumptions of the Study. The necessary assumptions for the study were: (1) Verbal problem-solving skills can be learned by the general mathematics students; (2) all students need to learn to solve verbal problems; (3) students in general mathematics classes have not been provided with adequate instruction and thus, have not been acquiring verbal problem-solving skills; (4) the experimental mathematics curriculum materials used to teach verbal problem-solving skills for this study will improve the students\u27 acquisition of these skills; and (5) although the unit of analysis for the analysis of covariance was the individual student and the independent variable (the experimental mathematics curriculum material) was randomly assigned to intact classes, there was no effect on the results of this study, and thus its outcome; Prupose of the Study. Even though there have been studies which have examined the relationship of such characteristics as: reading and verbal problem-solving skills; mathematics concepts and verbal problem-solving skills; and scholastic ability and verbal problem-solving skills, the researcher was unable to locate and evidence in the literature of a study which examined the effects of a specially designed mathematics curriculum unit on a student\u27s ability to solve verbal problems. Thus, the researcher designed this study, not only to fill the void, but hopefully, to provide information that will enable teachers of general mathematics to improve their students\u27 skills in verbal problem-solving and thus their ability to cope with the demands of today\u27s society; Procedures. Experimental mathematics curriculum materials were developed for use in this study. One hundred thirty-eight ninth grade general mathematics students in four junior high schools were selected to participate in the study. Of these 138 students, complete pre-study data from only 90 students were available. Therefore, only these 90 students were included as subjects in this study; The subjects in two of the four schools were randonly assigned to the Experimental Group and the subjects in the two remaining schools were designated the Control Group. Subjects in the Experimental Group used the experimental mathematics curriculum materials and the subjects in the Control Group continued with the current traditional program; After the completion of the experimental procedure, a posttest was administered to the 90 subjects who participated in the study. The results of the posttest were compared using Analysis of Covariance. Since intact classes were used in this study, the researcher further examined the prestudy data using discriminant analysis; Findings. The null hypothesis was tested, using the ANCOVA, and was rejected, with the experimental results significant at more than the .05 level. However, interpretation difficulties for ANCOVA, based in the non-random assignment of subjects to groups in the study, led the author to additional data considerations using the prestudy data as discriminating variables and the posttest results as a classification criterion in a discriminant analysis; The results of the discriminant analysis, using the prestudy data, were in agreement with the results of a study conducted by Chase (1960) to determine which factors were most effective in predicting success in solving verbal problems. The results of the discriminant analysis led this author to agree with earlier researchers that reading, intellectual factors, mathematics computation, and a knowledge of mathematics concepts are effective in predicting success in the acquisition of verbal problem-solving skills, and thus these variables may have influenced the outcome of the ANCOVA of this study