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Computer-Based Instruction (CBI) as a Way of Reducing Mathematics Anxiety
INTRODUCTION Comment by shravan uttakalla: this section can be much shorter than this.
Mathematics plays a vital role in people’s daily lives. The citizen of the modern world
could not afford to be ignorant of Mathematics because the world is highly mathematical (Betz as cited by Salazar, 2001). Hence, effective Mathematics instruction has become the absolute necessity in all levels of education. Despite explaining the importance of Mathematics, the students of today still have that negative attitudes toward the subject (Salazar, 2001). Most students think Mathematics is a boring subject, and it is difficult to memorize and understand formulas (Scarpello, 2007). Some students who cannot appreciate the importance of Mathematics even say that learning the four fundamental operations is enough, the use of graphs and formulas have no relevance to their daily living, so there is no need for further knowing the subject (Suinn, 1998).
In an international scene, particularly in America, a study was conducted by Gallup (2005) for determining the most difficult subject for American teenagers, surprisingly, Mathematics topped the list. About 29% named Mathematics generally, 6% specifically mentioned Algebra, and 2% named Geometry. Furthermore, according to the National Research Council, 75% of Americans stop studying Mathematics before they have completed the educational requirements for their career or job. With the basis from the statistics above, it is so unexpected fact that most Americans specifically teenagers find Mathematics difficult, considering that America belongs to the first class countries, a highly mathematical society because of its advanced technology. In the Philippines, a High School Readiness Test was administered to all Grade 6 graduates in public elementary schools in May, 2004 showed very low scores in Mathematics test. In the National Secondary Achievement Test (NSAT) given in year 2010, students got correct answers to less than 50% of the questions in Mathematics. Based on the Trends International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS), the Philippines was evaluated for the 8th Gradient in 1999. It was reported that out of the 34 participating nations, the Philippines was third from the bottom of the participating countries. The Philippines got 345 points as compared to Singapore having 604 points for Mathematics. The two lower countries were Morocco (337) and South Africa (275). Thus, we can infer that many Filipino students are having difficulties in subject Mathematics.
In Tagum City, particularly at Tagum City National High school (TCNHS) a percentage of 19.63% of the students who took National Achievement Test (NAT) 2004 in Mathematics passed. Six years later, a percentage of 21.43% of the students who took NAT (2010) in the same subject passed. From the statistics above, there is only about 2% increased for six years interval. The results were very surprising, noting that TCNHS is a research-oriented public school. The low performance in Mathematics at all levels is closely related to or a product of Mathematics anxiety. Attitudes toward mathematics include student ideas relevant to their interests, their perceptions of the usefulness of mathematics, or their intrinsic interests in the logic or challenge of mathematics (Richardson, 1980). Because of its wide influence, math anxiety is limiting and negatively influences students’ future career choices, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math majors (STEM) (Scarpello, 2007).
Many researchers, like, Tobias (1978), Williams (1988), Hembree (1990), Cemen (1987), Godbey (1997), Richardson and Suinn (1972), and Tapia and Moldavan (2007) contributed to either the definition or measurement instruments for mathematics anxiety. Several classroom strategies such as incorporating games and using relaxed settings to reduce mathematics anxiety have been suggested (Hatch, 1998). However, little has been done in the area of long-term coping strategies. Teachers are encouraged to use several strategies, but students are at a loss for what to do when faced with mathematics anxiety independently. The focus of this study is to determine if the implementation of computer-based instruction in the classroom is a long term strategy that can effectively reduce mathematics anxiety to the students.
Locale of the Study
The setting of the study is at Tagum City National High School (TCNHS). It is situated at Mangga District, Visayan Village, Tagum City. It is the biggest of the five main public high schools in Tagum City, under the jurisdiction of the DepEd Division of Tagum City. Founded on February 14, 1967, the institution started from a Barrio Charter to host secondary education for students to a highly-respected educational institution catering students from Tagum City and the province of Davao del Norte. As of 2010, there are about 5026 enrolled students and 125 teaching faculties. The school uses two curricula, the RBEC (Revised Basic Education Curriculum for regular students) and the SSC (Special Science Curriculum for the advanced students), both using the zero-based grading system for each quarter. On June 2010, the school shifted academic focus to the newly-implemented 2010 Secondary Education Curriculum (2010 SEC), though the said program was implemented on SY 2011-2012.
Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of this research proposal is to determine the effectiveness of computer-based instruction in reducing mathematics anxiety of the students in Tagum City National High School. Along with the intervention planned, this research proposal will also examine the possible causes of mathematics anxiety. However, for its actualization, the following questions were proposed.
1. What are the possible instruments in measuring the levels of mathematics anxiety?
2. What is the level of mathematics anxiety of the students?
3. Is there a significant difference between the levels of mathematics anxiety when the students are grouped by gender or by year level or by curriculum?
4. What are the possible causes of mathematics anxiety?
5. How effective is the computer-based instruction in reducing math anxiety?
Significance of the Study Comment by shravan uttakalla: this section can be longer than this. This is the place where you identify gaps you will fill in througth this study.
This action research proposal is highly significant because no study particularly in the effectiveness of computer technology in alleviating the mathematics anxiety of the students of Tagum City National High School in both curriculums has ever been conducted since the school became a research-oriented public school. This will also support teachers, parents, and students by increasing their knowledge of math anxiety and integrating computer technology in teaching that can both avoid and alleviate it. Thus, in general, this action research proposal will contribute to the maximum development of our society and in our present educational status.
Review of Related Literature Comment by shravan uttakalla: I am not expecting a lengthy literature review. Just cover the key concepts and research related to your topic.
The literature review covers the overview of math anxiety as well as the impact of technology in teaching mathematics and recent research on computer-based instruction. This relates to the purpose of the research proposal which will support teachers, parents, and students by increasing their knowledge of math anxiety and integrating computer technology in teaching that can both avoid and alleviate it.
Overview of Math Anxiety
Tobias (1978) defines mathematics anxiety as feelings of tension and anxiety that interfere with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in a wide variety of ordinary life and academic situations. It occurs at different ages in different people for different reasons. It can also generate pressure to drive people to think or react in an unreasonable way or cause avoidance of math classes until the last minute.
Math anxiety is quite varied, in both its symptoms and some of its hypothesized causes. Often the symptoms when encountering math are physiological, such as sweaty palms, nausea, heart palpitations, a hot tingling feeling, stomach aches or stomach cramps, and/or tightening muscles (Perry, 2004). Sometimes the symptoms are more psychological, such as paralysis of thought, extreme nervousness, an inability to hear the teacher, a tendency to become upset by noises, an inability to concentrate or loss of concentration, attention to or even preoccupation with intrusive thoughts and worry, negative self-talk, and/or a general sense of uneasiness (Ashcraft & Kirk, 2001).
Suggested strategies in reducing math anxiety. Math anxiety is a serious obstacle for many children across all grade levels. Math-anxious students learn lesser math than their low-anxious peers because they take fewer math classes and get poorer grades in the math classes they do take. Math anxiety has been studied for many years but has recently received renewed attention. Researchers believe that implementation of strategies to prevent or reduce math anxiety will improve math achievement for many students (Geist, 2010). Geist (2010) indicates that relating math to real life such as counting change and going grocery shopping can help in reducing math anxiety to the students. Furthermore, Sun & Pyzdrowski (2009) suggest that teachers must incorporate games and activities into math lessons so that students can experience math in a hands-on fashion. Using also manipulative to represent abstract ideas allows young learners to more easily understand the concepts they represent. In addition, students enjoy the change from lectures and books to hands-on learning (Plaisance, 2009). Recent research also shows that technology such as computers and internet is a helpful tool in reducing math anxiety (Hellum, 2010).
Technology
In parallel with the technological advances; technological devices, particularly computers began to be used in educational environments to develop audiovisual materials such as animation and simulation, which resulted in the development of the computer-based instruction techniques. CBI is the use of computers in the teaching and learning activities (Brophy, 1999). CBI is more effective on less successful children. The reason for this is that the computer-based instruction enables the children to progress at their own pace and provides them with appropriate alternative ways of learning by individualizing the learning process (Senemoglu, 2003).
Methodology Comment by shravan uttakalla: what is presented here is one example. You don't have to follow the same. But it gives you a good idea about how to propose research methods.
A quantitative approach will be followed. Quantitative research is a formal, objective, systematic process to describe and test relationships and examine cause and effect interactions among variables (Grove, 1993). The researcher chooses quantitative approach because it quantifies the data so that it can be treated statistically. Furthermore, Delan (2009) states that quantitative research is a better method than qualitative research because it is more simplified and numerical results can be easier to understand.
A descriptive survey design will be also used in this study. A survey is used to collect original data for describing a population too large to observe directly (Mouton, 1996). A survey obtains information from a sample of people by means of self-report, that is, the people respond to a series of questions posed by the investigator (Hungler, 1993). In this study the information will be collected through self-administered questionnaires and will be distributed personally to the subjects by the researcher. A descriptive survey has been selected because it provides an accurate portrayal or account of the characteristics, for example behavior, opinions, abilities, beliefs, and knowledge of a particular individual, situation or group. This design has been chosen to meet the objectives of the study, namely to design an instrument in measuring the level of anxiety.
On the other hand, the researcher will administer a set of test questionnaires for the students before and after the implementation of the intervention program on the evaluation of its effectiveness. The questionnaires will be utilized by two groups: the control group (without intervention) and the experimental group (with intervention). The results will be collected and treated using appropriate statistical tools.
Population and sample
The respondents of this study will be taken from Tagum City National High School (TCNHS). Currently, TCNHS has 5026 enrolled students and 125 teaching faculties. The sample of this study will only consist of 368 students. The number of sample is determined by using Slovin’s formula with 95% confidence. Slovin’s formula is used to get an appropriate number of samples taken from the population especially when the population is too large to study (Stephens, 1994). The researcher will make use of stratified sampling to select 368 students. Stratified sampling is constructed by classifying the population in sub-populations or strata, base on some well-known characteristics of the population (Retrieved from http://www.statistics.com). The researcher chooses stratified sampling because it can provide greater precision than a simple random sample of the same size (Ashley, 2002). The researcher will get 184 students from Revised Basic Education Curriculum (RBEC) and another 184 students from Special Science Curriculum (SSC). Out from 184 students in each curriculum, 46 students will be selected randomly from every year level. The researcher will divide the selected students per year level by two representing for the experimental and control group respectively, so that for each group there will be 23 students evenly distributed comprising both male and female students. Each group will be administered by identified mathematics teacher for the duration of the intervention program. The selected mathematics teachers will be chosen by the principal of the school.
Research Instrument
The research instrument will be used for this study in determining the level of mathematics anxiety of the students is a questionnaire consisting of four sections. In section A, the participants will be required to complete their personal profiles that include their name, age and other necessary data. In section B and C, a 5-point Likert scale will be used to assess the participants’ degree of agreement with teaching activities that cause mathematics anxiety and learning activities that reduce mathematics anxiety. In section D, the items will be adapted from the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS). Richardson and Suinn introduced the MARS and has been a major scale used for research and clinical studies since 1972 (Winston, 2003). Elevated scores on the MARS test translate to high mathematics anxiety (Richardson, 1972). The 15 items in this section will be composed of items on mathematics related tasks and students will be required to rate their levels of fear and awareness with the tasks. The participants will be rated their levels of anxiety accordingly using the dimensions of “not at all”, “a little”, “a fair amount”, “much”, or “very much”. Students will be expected to complete the questionnaires in 30 minutes.
On the other hand, the pre-test and post-test that will be administered to the students at the beginning and the end of the intervention program are the same type of researcher- made questionnaire. It is a one-hour 60-item multiple-choice type of test that comprises basic and practical mathematics. The test will include the following topics: business mathematics, number operations (integers and fractions), algebra operations, and plane and solid geometry.
Administrative Procedure
Firstly, the researcher will obtain approval from the faculty to administer the questionnaires to the identified students. Then with the permission of the lecturer, the researcher will enter the class and administer the questionnaires to the students. The researcher will explain the purposes of the study and ensure the confidentiality of the responses. Then the researcher will conduct a briefing to the students on how to answer the questionnaires and assist them if they have problems in understanding the questions. Discussions between students will be discouraged. Students will be expected to complete the questionnaires in 30 minutes. In the intervention part, the researcher will seek an approval first from the principal to conduct a 3-day seminar for the selected teachers and will ask permission to conduct an experimental instruction to the identified students for two grading periods. The seminar will tackle the issues concerning Information and Technology (IT) Advancement on Education and Computer-Based Instruction. The researcher will invite IT experts and some experienced educators to train the chosen teachers. The researcher will also help facilitate the seminar by explaining to the teachers the importance and the purposes of the study. The researcher will send a letter to the Local Government Units (LGU) and Local Government Officials (LGO) to ask for assistance in providing the necessary equipments and materials (lcd projectors, laptops).
After the seminar, the pre-test questionnaires will be administered by the teacher to the students. The students will answer the questionnaire in one hour and strict test rules will be followed by them. The answers to the test will be encoded ready for data processing; the Microsoft Excel will be used. The scores will be gathered and recorded for data analysis.
The selected students will be divided into two: experimental group (with intervention) and control group (without intervention). The experimental group will experience CBI and full utilization of computers in every math discussion but prior to that the teacher will discuss first the basic computer operations to the students for 3 days. The teachers for this group will be required to incorporate educational computer games, PowerPoint presentations and drills to teaching mathematics. On the other group, the student will experience a traditional classroom setting. The teachers for this group will be allowed to use any teaching methods and strategies but with the absence of IT support. The whole duration for this setting is 2 grading period or roughly equivalent to five months.
After five months, the teacher will administer to the students of both groups a post-test; the same test given in the pre-test. The result of this test will be gathered and compared to the pre-test and will be correlated to the result of the survey-questionnaire took by the students. All the data collected will be treated statistically and will be reported to the faculty the result of the study as soon as data analysis will be accomplished. After that, the classes will be resuming back to its original and normal setting.
References
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