Effectiveness of online and classroom-based instructional methods in developmental mathematics courses at a small public community college.

摘要

Many students enter college inadequately prepared to take college-level math courses like College Algebra, and as a consequence must take one or more developmental math courses. It is becoming increasingly common for colleges to offer math courses online, including various developmental math courses including Intermediate Algebra. Many computer-assistive technologies exist, some coupled with mathematics textbooks, to purportedly help students learn mathematics better. These technologies are often used in online developmental math courses, and in developmental math course taught in the traditional face-to-face classroom.;The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the use of technology in Intermediate Algebra courses taught through regular and blended instruction, online, in the traditional classroom supplemented with technology, and in the traditional classroom. The independent variable was the type of instruction received but students were not randomly assigned to the three types of instruction, as they were free to take whichever instruction they chose. The dependent variables were the final course grades of those who completed the course, and a comparison of the rate of course completion, versus withdrawing or failing for all students enrolled in the course past the first week drop/add period. Dummy variables of 1 and 0 were assigned to completing and not completing the course, respectively.;An analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. There was no statistically significant difference in the course grades of those who took the courses in the three types of instruction; nor was there any statistically significant difference in the rate of course completion in the three types of instruction.