The Effects of an Experimental Curriculum Development Project in Statistics on The Achievement and Attitude of Tenth Grade Students in Liberia

312 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1983.Problem. Mathematics has always been accorded a prominent position in the secondary schools of Liberia. Certain problems, however, tend to hinder the effective teaching and learning of this subject. One of these problems is the availability of appropriate curricular materials and products and the assessment of their efficacy on student outcomes. This research was conducted to address this problem.Purpose of Study. To assess the teachability of statistics in Liberian Schools by investigating the effects of an exprimental project in statistics on the achievement and attitude of tenth graders in Liberia.Procedures. Eight teachers and 339 students of 11 classes in Liberian Schools participated in the study. Students took a statistics achievement test before and after they were taught from curricular materials in statistics and an attitude inventory at the end of the study.Effect sizes and learning indices (loss, retentivity, and gain indices) were computed to assess learning outcomes. Canonical analysis was used to determine the interrelatedness of independent and dependent variables. Regression Analysis was used to predict posttest scores on statistics. Attitudinal items were analyzed by clustering and ranking responses.Findings. (1) Students showed a 2.77 standard deviation unit superiority of performance on posttest than on pretest total scores. (2) Students generally expressed positive attitudes towards teaching and learning statistics. (3) Junior High School Mathematics Average, Years Student Intends to Study Mathematics, and Pretest Scores were found to be predictors of posttest scores in Statistics.Conclusions. (1) Use of the curricular materials which were developed tended to improve students' knowledge of statistics and develop in them positive attitudes towards teaching and learning statistics. (2) Statistics is teachable to tenth graders in Liberia.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD