Date of Award
2004
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Fischler Graduate School of Education and Human Services
Advisor
James Davis
Committee Member
Charles Amuso
Committee Member
Maryellen Maher
Keywords
ability grouping, academic achievement, archival data, criterion-referenced tests, curriculum effectiveness, educational assessment, elementary schools, English language arts, flexible grouping, instructional effectiveness, instructional intervention, learning readiness, learning strategies, learning style, mathematics achievement, mathematics curriculum, mathematics instruction, mathematics literacy, Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, middle schools, modality, National Center for Educational Statistics, qualitative research, school improvement, small-group instruction, state assessments, student achievement, student performance, student surveys, teacher interviews, Third International Math and twenty-first century skills
Abstract
Mathematical achievement across this country lags behind not only that of other industrialized nations but also behind that of other disciplines in the United States as documented by the Third International Math and Science Survey (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1999). Archival data from the state assessment, Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, over the past 4 years document that mathematics performance lags behind English/language arts at all levels. Moreover, performance in mathematics is stagnant at the middle school level, Grades 6-8, unlike continual gains at the elementary and high school level. Clearly, student performance at the middle school level is an area of great concern in Andover Public Schools. Data from statewide criterion-referenced tests as well as internal assessments illustrate an ongoing lack of improvement in student performance under the current mathematics curricula and instructional program in the district.
The importance of developing mathematics literacy for all students cannot be overstated. Just as all students need the skills and understanding to communicate effectively with language, so, too, they need that same mathematical literacy in terms of understanding and communicating through the language of numbers in order to survive and to be successful in the 21st century. The critical middle school years build on the foundation of the elementary level instruction and segue students to continuing the greater sophistication of math learning at the high school and beyond.
With an evidence pattern from archival data and preliminary qualitative research in the form of teacher and student surveys and interviews, an hypothesis is presented here that seeks to identify an instructional intervention that will effect change in the entrenched pattern of stagnant mathematical performance at the middle level. By incorporating an instructional design component using flexible small-group configurations based on student learning style or modality and by learning readiness, this study examined the interventional impact on student academic achievement in mathematics. The purpose of this study was to offer documented research in strategies of instructional effectiveness to enhance student mathematics achievement at the middle school level.