GRAPHING CALCULATOR STRATEGY IN TEACHING AND LEARNING OF MATHEMATICS: EFFECTS ON CONCEPTUAL AND PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE PERFORMANCE AND INSTRUCTIONAL EFFICIENCY

摘要

Two series of quasi-experimental study with nonequivalent control group post-test only design were conducted to investigate the effects of using graphic calculators in mathematics teaching and learning specifically in the Straight Line topic, on Form Four(16 year-old) Malaysian secondary school students' conceptual and procedural knowledge performance and 3-D instructional efficiency index. Experiment in Phase Ⅰ was conducted to provide an initial indicator of the effectiveness of graphic calculator strategy on students' performance. Experiment for Phase Ⅱ was further carried out incorporating measures of mathematical performance, namely the conceptual and procedural knowledge performance and measures of instructional efficiency. There were two instruments used in this study namely, the Straight Lines Achievement Test and the Mental Effort Rating Scales. The data were analysed using independent t-test and planned comparison test. The results of this study showed that the graphic calculator strategy group had better conceptual knowledge performance as compared to conventional instruction strategy group and most important they did not lose procedural knowledge performance. In addition, the study also showed that the graphic calculator instruction increased the 3-dimensional instructional efficiency index in learning of Straight Lines topic. These findings indicated that the graphic calculator instruction is superior in comparison to the conventional instruction, hence implying that it was more efficient instructionally than the conventional instruction strategy.