Research on the Effects of Integrating Virtual Manipulatives into Remedial Instruction of Fractions in the Sixth Grade

• Main Authors: Ching-Tsung Liu, 劉景聰
• Other Authors: 袁媛
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/31544668511155069852

碩士 === 中原大學 === 教育研究所 === 96 === The purpose of this study was to explore whether the virtual manipulatives could be an effective aid of remedial instruction or not. The research provided the reference of carrying on remedial instruction of fraction, and proved that the virtual manipulatives may help students to study fraction. This research adopted the quasi-expermental design to examine the effects of remedial instructions. The subjects were students of 12 classes of a primary school of Taoyuan county. Researcher designed a performance test understanding of fraction concept to identity elementary school students. According to the test results, the researcher chose those whose score were lower than average as the target. Subsequently, the target students were divided into three groups, one group uses the virtual manipulatives to remedy teaching; another group uses the general traditional teaching aid to remedy teaching; the other group had not administered remedial instruction at all. The data of the research were based on “the pupils’ learning performance of the concept of fraction” and a website, be known as” Learning fraction for fun” and the questionnaire of teaching feedback. The major results were summarized as follows： 1.The performance of the remedial instruction was better than the contrary, and using the virtual manipulatives is better than using the traditional teaching aid. 2.The learning performance had obviously progressed in the virtual manipulatives group and the traditional teaching aid group, as for the group which had not administered remedial instruction, the performance hadn•t changed at all. 3.Students of virtual manipulatives group had excellent performance on the equivalent fraction item and the concept item of dividing number into equal parts . 4.Virtual manipulatives can be a good teaching aids on remedial instruction, specially with the mastery teaching strategy. 5. Remedial instruction is necessary for under-achivers. 6.The use of virtual manipulatives did not improve student•s performance on addition of fractions.Pencil and paper practice should be integrated into this application for better outcomes. 7.Students of virtual manipulatives group satisfied with incorporating virtual manipulatives into remedial instruction. Finally, based on the findings of this study, suggestions for improving teaching and future research were discussed.