The purpose of this study was to make a comparison of the effects of mathematical activities through mathematic-related fairy tales on the mathematical conception and attitude of preschoolers. This attempt was expected to provide efficient teaching-le...
The purpose of this study was to make a comparison of the effects of mathematical activities through mathematic-related fairy tales on the mathematical conception and attitude of preschoolers. This attempt was expected to provide efficient teaching-learning materials about how to apply math activities through multiple types of mathematic-related fairy tales to preschool education.
The research questions were posed as below:
1. What effects do math activities through mathematic-related fairy tales on the mathematical concepts of young children?
2. What effects do math activities through mathematic-related fairy tales on the mathematical attitude of young children?
The subjects in this study were 58 children who were five years old in Western age and attended C kindergarten in the city of Gwangju. An experimental group and a control group were randomly organized with 29 kindergarteners each based on their learning readiness test scores. The experimental group was engaged in math activities by utilizing mathematical fairy tales, and the control group was engaged in math activities by using general fairy tales associated with life themes. The experiment was conducted in 15 sessions for five weeks, three times a week.
To assess the learning readiness of the young children, an inventory used in an earlier study(Lee Im-sok, 2002) was selected, which was extracted from Korea Educational Development Institute(1988)'s Preschooler Learning Readiness Inventory and was related to mathematical conception. As for mathematical conception, Kim Yeon-ok (2004)'s revised version of Barron(1979)'s Mathematical Conception Scale for Teacher Diagnosis, was employed. To evaluate the mathematical attitude of the young children, Hwang Jeong-suk(1996)'s inventory and Yun Eun-gyeong(2004)'s inventory were utilized, which both re-amended Ward(1993)'s revised version of Harter & Pike(1984)'s Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance for Young Children.
To determine the effects of math activities with different types of mathematical fairy tales on the mathematical conception and attitude of the preschoolers, the collected data generated by pretest and posttest were analyzed with SPSS program, and t-test was implemented.
The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, there was a statistically significant difference in overall mathematical conception between the experimental group who did math activities through mathematical fairy tales and the control group who utilized general fairy tales. The experimental group exposed to mathematical fairy tales made a better progress in that regard.
In terms of the subfactors of mathematical conception including numerical conservation, ordinal, space and set, the experimental group to which mathematical fairy tales were applied was statistically significantly different from the control group to which general fairy tales were applied. But there was no statistically significant intergroup gap in classifying, order and measuring, though their scores increased in those aspects.
Second, the experimental group that participated in math activities by using mathematical fairy tales was statistically significantly different in mathematical attitude from the control group that took part in math activities through general fairy tales. The experimental group exposed to mathematical fairy tales made a more improvement in mathematical attitude.
In the subfactors of mathematical attitude including preference, competence and perception of evaluation by others, the experimental group that took part in math activities by using mathematical fairy tales was statistically significantly different from the control group that participated in math activities by using general fairy tales related to life themes. There was no statistically significant intergroup gap between the two in confidence and zeal for learning, though they got better scores in those regards.
The above-mentioned findings of the study suggested that the preschoolers who were engaged in math activities by using mathematical fairy tales made a better progress in mathematical conception and attitude than the others who were engaged in math activities by using general fairy tales. And it could be concluded that math activities through mathematical fairy tales are one of efficient and appropriate methods to enhance the mathematical conception and mathematical attitude of preschoolers who are at the age of five in Western age.