| The purpose of this research study was to investigate whether a change in teaching method would affect the content knowledge of students or student attitudes toward mathematics. Many innovations are occurring in developmental mathematics classrooms across the nation, but there is little evaluation being done of the impact of these modifications. This research study addresses the lack of specific information on developmental mathematics coursework by creating, implementing and evaluating a comparison of teaching methods.;Because the intent was to measure change, a quantitative research study was conducted. Content knowledge was measured in two ways: (1) through the use of ALEKS assessments given at the beginning and end of the semester and (2) on final exam problems. Attitude was measured through the use of the Attitudes Toward Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) instrument.;The study included three treatment sections. The Control section represented the typical developmental algebra instruction provided at the university. An Application section was consistent with the Control and inserted real-life applications throughout the topics. A Groupwork section also inserted real-world applications throughout the topics, but additionally required mathematical justifications for answers and offered opportunities for working in groups. For the two non-Control sections, the faculty agreed on a change in topic coverage: (1) the elimination of three topics to focus on linear mathematics in more depth and (2) the inclusion of two additional topics.;The data showed conflicting results regarding whether a change in teaching method affected content knowledge gain and did not show a statistically significant affect on attitude. However, on further examination, post-hoc analysis produced several results of interest.;The most notable finding was that removing the two topic domain groups of factoring and radicals made no difference in content knowledge gain when comparing across all three sections. A second notable finding was that a post-hoc analysis of means looking at the ATMI subscales (self-confidence, value, enjoyment, motivation) showed that students in the Groupwork section had the highest attitude gain of all three sections over all four subscales. Another related finding was that the Groupwork section had highest completion rate of all sections at 90%. |
