THE EFFECT OF THE INDIVIDUALIZED MANPOWER TRAINING SYSTEM INSTRUCTION PROGRAM IN BASIC MATH SKILLS ON THE ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL AND DROPOUT AND FAILURE RATE OF MATHEMATICS OF BUSINESS STUDENTS AT DAYTONA BEACH COMMUNITY COLLEGE (FLORIDA)

The purpose of this study was to determine if requiring business mathematics students at Daytona Beach Community College (DBCC) to participate in a remedial mathematics program would increase their achievement level and decrease the failure and dropout rate.;The 80 students enrolled in business mathematics who scored at the 9.9 grade level or below on the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE), math fundamentals section, adapted from the California Achievement Test, 1967 edition, participated in the experiment. A posttest only control group design with randomization was developed. The 80 students were randomly divided into two groups. The treatment group participated in the Individualized Manpower Training System (IMTS) remedial program; the control group did not. Three achievement tests were developed, validated and administered to the students in both groups.;The Finn Multivariate statistical program for multivariate analysis of variance (manova) and the SPSS statistical program for one-way analysis of variance (anova) were used to determine if no significant difference existed at the 0.05 level between the achievement levels of students who receive remedial instruction and those who did not. The scores from the three achievement tests were analyzed. The results of the manova and anova procedures indicated that the achievement level of the treatment group was significantly higher than the achievement level of the control group, and that the effects of the three achievement tests within each group were interacting.;The SPSS program for chi square was used to determine if there were no significant differences between the number of students in the treatment group and control group who passed, failed or dropped the course. The computed chi square was not significant at the 0.05 level. Thus, no significant differences existed between the number of students in the treatment and control group who passed, failed or dropped the course.;The conclusions drawn from the findings include: (1) Requiring business mathematics students at DBCC to participate in the IMTS diagnostic/prescriptive remedial program in business mathematics skills will raise their achievement level. (2) The IMTS remedial program in basic mathematics skills is not likely to significantly reduce the failure or dropout rate of business mathematics students at DBCC.