Improving students' attitude, conceptual understanding and procedural skills in differential calculus through Microsoft mathematics

Abstract

This study examined the effects of using Microsoft Mathematics on students' attitude, conceptual understanding, and procedural skills in Differential Calculus. A quasi-experimental research design was used in which two different learning environments were compared. The participants of the study were two classes of Electrical Engineering students enrolled in Differential Calculus course, assigned randomly as control and experimental groups with 30 students in each group. The control group was taught using the traditional approach of teaching Differential Calculus while the experimental group was taught the same lessons using the Microsoft Mathematics embedded activity sheets. The experimental group learned through exploration and discovery of various concepts. The findings indicated that the participants had little understanding of the concepts and processes of Calculus prior to the conduct of the study. A significant improvement in their performances was noted after the experimentation. This suggests that the use of Microsoft Mathematics in teaching and learning Differential Calculus improves students' conceptual understanding and procedural skills. It is also found that the use of Microsoft Mathematics in teaching and learning calculus is equally effective as the traditional approach. In terms of attitude, the experimental group demonstrated a "favorable" to "very highly favorable" attitude along the five (5) domains of the MTAS. A significant difference exists between the pretest and posttest attitude of the participants on the domain "learning Mathematics with technology".

The Use of PSPP Software in Learning Statistics

“…The findings also conforms to the results of previous literatures and studies that the use of technology in teaching mathematics such as statistics may increase students' positive attitude towards the subject, and at the end will lead to better academic performance towards the subject (Mushtaq & Khan, 2012;Basturk, 2005;Zhang, et. al., 2012;Mendezabal & Tindowen, 2018;Mata, Monteiro & Peixoto, 2012).…”

Effective Metaheuristic Assignment to Improve Equivalence in Small Experimental Pedagogical Groups

“…Li et al (2014) justify the use of a matched-pair design for the same purpose. However, there is concern that some quasi-experimental studies, such as those of Mendezabal and Tindowen (2018) and Rosário et al (2017), use only random assignment without carrying out a pre-test evaluation of the degree of equivalence between their experimental groups, which in this type of design should be necessary.…”

“…On the other hand, although we proposed to use the overall grade point average as a proxy measure of each student's PL, to apply the experiment to any subject, we believe we can improve this factor to balance the experimental groups by using the grade point average only of the subjects related to the topic taught (prerequisites), coinciding in this aspect with what is proposed by Mendezabal and Tindowen (2018), although differing in the assignment method, but this requires further assessment.…”

“…Each new resource seeks to replace a traditional one in use, which is justified as long as it is more effective, but this does not necessarily happen. Thus, Mendezabal and Tindowen (2018) in a quasi-experimental research design, in which two different groups were compared, found that the use of Microsoft Mathematics in learning calculus is no moreeffective than the traditional approach. While Jelatu, Sariyasa and Ardana (2018) concluded that the geometry concepts are better learned using the Geo Gebra-aided REACT strategy than with conventional (expository) teaching.…”

Incidence of a hypermedia educational material on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics

“…Is there dialogue between the disciplines in the context of this research work? As regards to the first question, most of the articles considered were found to revolve around the design of some application or digital study material aimed at helping with the graphical visualization of concepts and favouring dynamic exploration through the interaction features offered by the digital media (Ascheri, Pizarro, Astudillo, García, & Culla, 2014;Dolecek, 2012;Gonzalez, Medina, Vilanova, & Astiz, 2011;Mendezabal & Tindowen, 2018). Several authors use applets (Aveleyra, Dadamia, & Racero, 2014;Ramírez Osorio, 2014) and animation (Morales, Herrera, Fennema, & Goñi, 2014;Pirro et al, 2012) as interactive resource.…”