Tuesday, April 12, 2016: 10:40 AM
3022 (San Francisco Convention Center)
This algebra-readiness study was based on a teaching experiment with three seventh-grade classes in a Midwestern middle school. Three different algebra approaches to early algebra—a Modeling approach, a Visual-Number approach, and a Structural approach—were employed, with just one approach being taught to a particular class. The same teacher (Ms. X) taught all three classes, each for a period of seven weeks. Before the teaching experiment, Miss X had participated in a three-week professional development program led by the researcher and two experienced algebra education professors. Pre-teaching and post-teaching data were collected, the instruments being an Algebra Readiness test (ART), a Modeling test, a Visual-Number test, and a Structure test. In addition to data gathered from responses to the pencil-and-paper instruments, data from 36 one-one interviews with students (18 pre-teaching and 18 post-teaching) were analyzed. Initial findings indicated that whereas the Modeling class’s mean gain score was significantly different from zero, the mean gain scores for the other two groups increased only slightly. In this paper the data analyses are summarized and results interpreted.