Sixth grade students' conceptual and procedural knowledge and word problem solving skills in length, area, and volume measurement

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Eğitim Bilimleri Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2010

Öğrenci: GÜLÇİN TAN ŞİŞMAN

Danışman: MERAL AKSU

Özet:

The purpose of this study was to investigate sixth grade students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge and word problem solving skills in the domain of length, area, and volume measurement with respect to gender, previous mathematics achievement, and use of materials. Through the Conceptual Knowledge test (CKT), the Procedural Knowledge Test (PKT), and the Word Problems test (WPT) and the Student Questionnaire, the data were collected from 445 sixth grade students attending public schools located in four different main districts of Ankara. Both descriptive and inferential statistics techniques (MANOVA) were used for the data analysis. The results indicated that the students performed relatively poor in each test. The lowest mean scores were observed in the WPT, then CKT, and PKT respectively. The questions involving length measurement had higher mean scores than area and volume measurement questions in all tests. Additionally, the results highlighted a significant relationship not only between the tests but also between the domains of measurement with a strong and positive correlation. According to the findings, whereas the overall performances of students on the tests significantly differed according to previous mathematics achievement level, gender did not affect the students’ performance on the tests. Moreover, a wide range of mistakes were found from students’ written responses to the length, area, and volume questions in the tests. Besides, the results indicated that use of materials in teaching and learning measurement was quite seldom and either low or non-significant relationship between the use of materials and the students’ performance was observed.