The goal of this study is to find out how the concrete-object-
manipulation education program can improve the children's mathematical ability by way of action research experimentation.
The main problems to resolve in this study are as follows:
First,...
The goal of this study is to find out how the concrete-object-
manipulation education program can improve the children's mathematical ability by way of action research experimentation.
The main problems to resolve in this study are as follows:
First, how much effect can the participation to figure-education program make on the ability in solving figure problem?
Second, how much effect can the participation to figure-education program make on the mathematical self-efficiency?
Third, how much effect can the participation to figure-education program make on decreasing the fear of mathematics?
Fourth, are there the any relationships among the children's problem solving ability, mathematical self-efficiency and the fear of mathematics?
The objectives of this study were the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders of elementary school(located in AnYang, KyoungGi province) and the subjects were all 519.
To verify the result of this study, we used several tests such as problem-solving test, mathematical self-efficiency test and the test of fear of mathematics. And the author administered above three tests before and after the figure-education program, to measure how much the program make effect on the improvement of problem-solving ability to identify the changes before-after experimentation.
To analyze the result in statistically and to verify the differences, we use t-test, ANCOVA, Paired t-test and correlation test.
The summation of the results of this study are as follows :
First, after participating figure-education program, the experimental group got significantly higher points at geometry test than comparison group in every 3rd, 4th and 5th graders.
Second, after participating figure-education program, the experimental group got significantly higher point at mathematical self-efficiency test than comparison group in every 3rd, 4th and 5th graders.
Third, after participating figure-education program, the experiment group showed significantly less fear of mathematics than comparison group in every 3rd, 4th and 5th graders.
Based on the result and the statistical verification, we can conclude that figure-education program can improve the mathematical self-efficiency, lessen the fear of mathematics and improve the problem-solving ability at figures, thus it can help children develop concept about figures efficiently.
Because figure-education is related to not only mathematics but also science, art, music and the other education area, for creative education figure-education must use children's self-manipulation at concrete figures, so it can be adapted for developing the concept, principle and property of figure.
As we can learn from the result of this study, the figure-education should be reformed from the plain, fixed and passive methods toward the live, exciting and manipulative methods, in other words, the figure-education should be improved to the point of principle education based on the field experience. To achieve this goal, we have to continue developing figure-education program from the field experience and concrete manipulation.