Impact of instructional factors on Math Proficiency

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LITERATURE REVIEW1

Accelerated Math Intervention3

Instructional Factors and General Student Achievement Outcomes4

Allocated academic instruction time6

Appropriate instructional match7

Corrective instructional feedback8

Monitoring8

Goal setting10

Conclusion11

REFERENCES12

LITERATURE REVIEW

Since the 1950's, American educators have been engaging in efforts to reform mathematics education in the United States. The first major mathematics reform effort was sparked by the failure of the United States to be the first in space. This reform included several federally funded programs, based on guided discovery methods, designed to improve students' computational and problem-solving performance. However, according to some authors, this effort failed because of vague theoretical conceptualization and costly implementation procedures (Mercer et al., 1993). In 1989, another attempt was made to improve mathematics education in this country with the creation of the Standards for Teaching Mathematics by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). The NCTM called for an emphasis on teaching conceptual understanding of mathematics and a focus on higher-order problem solving. Following the release of these standards, educators again made efforts to reform and improve math education to align with new expectations. However, the 1989 standards were criticized for not considering the mistakes made in past reform efforts and for not paying attention to the diverse needs of students identified in educational research of the decades before.

For several years, the lack of mathematics proficiency has been a concern for American educators and policy makers. Statistics show that on mathematics performance tests, the United States lag far behind other countries. Therefore it is highly important to analyze the factors that are of consequence in affecting student outcomes in Math discipline.

Educational research throughout the past several decades has contributed much information about factors related to student success and failure in math. Education is a complex process involving the influence of many different elements. When evaluating the components of an intervention program it is important also to recognize the effects of factors not included in the intervention. Several authors separate factors related to student success into three categories: student characteristics, environmental characteristics and instructional characteristics. From a survey of educational literature on predictors of mathematics success, a list of factors was compiled and separated into the three categories mentioned above. This list is presented in Table 1. Below is a brief overview of the effective instructional factors identified in mathematics education literature.

Several student characteristics have been evaluated. Prior achievement and student ability have been identified as strong predictors of future achievement outcomes. The relationship between gender and mathematics outcomes has also been examined. Leder (1992) reported that the literature shows there is much overlap in the performance of males and females in mathematics. However, differences tend to favor males, especially in higher-order cognitive types of questions. He also reported that these differences in male and female performance are often accompanied by differences in the way males and females regard themselves, are regarded by others, and view themselves as learners of mathematics.

In addition to student factors, factors in the environment have been linked to student academic ...