| This study investigated the effects of manipulative materials, reform techniques and constructivist's strategies and traditional methodologies on students who have completed lessons on concepts of algebra through direct encounters with manipulative materials, and students receiving traditional, structured lessons consisting of concept introduction, practice and application.;The study involved 34 students in a school in Northeastern section of the District of Columbia. The students were randomly divided into two groups; a manipulative group and a traditional group. The manipulative group was taught mathematics using algebra tiles, reform techniques and constructivists' strategies.;Although there were students who did not benefit from the reform approach; significance was found in the attitudes of the manipulative group. To further explore the differences between groups, the researcher used a general guided interview.;The traditional group used traditional lessons relying on researcher explanation, work sheets, chalkboard, and textbook. Researcher used varying methods of explanations but no physical models were handled by this group. Examples were written on the chalkboard, and the students practiced problems on paper symbols.;Data describing the uses of manipulative materials, reform techniques, using constructivist's strategies were collected using interviews and observations of class sessions to show their impact on the manipulative group.;The statistical design used was the analysis of covariance; it was used to adjust for pre-existing differences among the groups, and also to control for the effects of extraneous variables. The analysis explains more of the error variance in the research and to control statistically any initial differences in the students which might have been present and which might have created the differences between the two groups of students.;The values of the t-tests in the traditional and the manipulative groups were the same; the values of the significant 2-tailed tests were the same; the mean differences were the same, and the standard error differences were the same. The t-tests for the equality of means indicated that the absolute values of the test statistics were the same. It was concluded that the intervention in the traditional group was as effective as that of the manipulative group. There were statistically no significant differences in the achievement of both groups. |
