This study researched the effects of the computer-aided mathematics education activities on children’s arithmetic development and mathematical approach attitude. Arithmetic development and mathematical approach attitude tests were conducted before a...
This study researched the effects of the computer-aided mathematics education activities on children’s arithmetic development and mathematical approach attitude. Arithmetic development and mathematical approach attitude tests were conducted before and afterexecution ofthe program to analyze theeffectsofcomputer-aided mathematics education activities. The following study questions were put forth to achieve the study objective.
Study Question 1.
What are the effects of computer-aided mathematics education activities on children’s arithmetic development (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division)?
Study Question 2.
What are the effects of computer-aided mathematics education activities on children’s mathematical approach attitude?
This study was conducted on 62(31 in experiment group and 31 in control group) of 5-year-old children enrolled in E Kindergarten located in Gyeonggi-do,Korea.In order to measure cognitive capability ofthechildren, an intelligence test was carried out before-hand,and thechildren were also tested on arithmetic development and mathematical approach attitudepriorto execution of the computer-aided mathematics education activities.
The experiment execution period was from March through April 2005, during which the children in the experiment group were given 16 sessions of a computer-aided mathematics education program.Each session comprised 25~30 minutes of corporate activities and 15~20 minutes of small group activities.Thesessionsweregiven during the regular teaching hours.Of the computer-aided mathematics education program,the arithmetic components were processed the experiment.
As for the computer-aided arithmetic activity program,the children web site GeniKids was utilized.The unique design ofGeniKids used familiar materials easily found in everyday life ofchildren forpresenting situations and guiding the children to solve the problems and learn mathematical concepts.
After the experiment,a post-examination was carried out in order to measure the effects of the computer-aided arithmetic program, and the differences between the experiment group and the control group were compare-analyzed. The pre- and post-obtained scores of arithmetic developmentand mathematicalapproach attitude were processed with SPSS 12.0 and SAS V8 for averages and standard deviations, after which independent sample T-tests were performed.
Important findings of this study may be summarized as below.
Levels of children’s arithmetic development and mathematical approach attitude in the experiment group using the computer-aided mathematics education and the controlgroup without any computer-aided mathematics education prior to the experiment were found to have no statistically significant differences. However, after execution of the experiment, their levels showed statistically high significance in differences. Analysis by each element showed that addition,subtraction,multiplication,division and mathematical approach attitude allshowed significantdifferences.Allthese results imply thatcomputer-aided mathematics education activities are effective and have positive influences on children’s arithmetic development and mathematical approachattitude.
The following suggestions could be drawn based on the study results.
First, arithmetic, the field used in this study,is an indispensable component of children education which is taught not only in kindergartens but also at home with the highest frequency and heaviest weight. As such,absolute control of this field would be quite impossible, and therefore it must be noted that this study is somewhat limited in this aspect.
Second, study on effects of computer-aided activities on children’s mathematics education or developmentnotonly in the arithmetic field but alsoin algebra, geometry, diagrams and many ot her fields should be carried out.
Third,many othereducationalweb sites should be evaluated and utilized for studies.Contents evaluation tools should also be developed for future studies.