Faculty of Education - Theses

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Start date: 2010 × Subject: at risk × Subject: mathematics ×

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    Designing and implementing an intervention program to improve under-achieving Year 8 students’ understanding of multiplicative thinking and assess associated gains in motivation and engagement
    Lovell, Oliver ( 2016)
    A fifteen-week intervention was carried out in order to examine the efficacy of the Scaffolding Numeracy in the Middle Years (SNMY) (Education Victoria, 2013b) instructional resources in improving the multiplicative thinking of eight under-achieving Year 8 students. The eight students participating in the intervention were contrasted against a similarly profiled control group of ten students. Participants were drawn from a co-educational high school on the lands of the People of the Kulin Nation in Northern Metropolitan Melbourne. Changes in students’ multiplicative thinking, as well as associated changes in motivation and engagement, were measured in pre- and post-intervention assessments. Multiplicative thinking was measured with the SNMY Assessment Booklets 1 and 2, with motivation and engagement examined by use of the High School Motivation and Engagement Scale (MES-HS) (Martin, 2003), also prior-to and following the intervention. These quantitative data sources were complemented with qualitative sources in the form of researcher’s notes and student work samples. Whilst analysis of quantitative data did not indicate significant changes in multiplicative thinking for either the intervention or the control groups, qualitative data sources indicated that students within the intervention group demonstrated modest gains in multiplicative thinking. No statistically significant changes to motivation and engagement were recorded for students in the control group, whereas those in the intervention group showed a significant decrease in both failure avoidance and anxiety, and a significant increase in disengagement between pre- and post-testing. Findings point to several barriers to achievement for mathematically under- achieving students in the middle years, as well as directions for the improvement of similar interventions in future.