Early Numerical Intervention Utilizing Ethiopian Gabat’a on Achievement and Motivation of Students with Mathematics Difficulties
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Date
2021-06
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AAU
Abstract
In the field of mathematics difficulties, there is an often-noted lack of researches. The present study
investigated the effect of concrete fading numerical intervention utilizing gabat‘a on early numerical
achievement and early mathematics motivation of primary school students with MD. Gabat‘a, the
Ethiopian indigenous math game, has six holes, two storages, and stones/beads for playing in pair.In
the present study, it was organized for dual purposes: for instruction and game. Children with MD
exhibit multifaceted problems in comparison with their counter parts. These lead them to have long term educational problems. At 3 sites, 72 students with MD were screened using BANUCA and other
screening tools. A method of quantitative experimental research utilizing pretest-posttest control group
design was used in tandem with MANCOVA to analyze the data. The design used stratified
randomization, taking gender, difficulty type, prior mathematics knowledge as a strata and then
randomly allocated into: Experiment 1 entailed two groups, CIGO and control group; and experiment
2 involved three groups, AIGG, AIGO, and control group. The interventions occurred in total for 18
week, 3 sessions per week and 45–60 min per session. Then, a MANCOVA result shows that students
with MD in both experiments exhibited significantly higher performance than control group on
counting and number concept achievement, arithmetic achievement, and early mathematics
motivation. However, students with MD in AIGG condition did not show significant performances
than that of AIGO condition. In addition, the findings indicated that mostly gender, difficulty type, and
prior mathematics knowledge did not play significant roles in achievement and early mathematics
motivation. With respect to correlational results, within the addition and subtraction constructs, the
correlation was highest, similar results were found in cross correlation as well. The multiple
regression findings indicated that addition had a unique significant contribution for subtraction than
counting. Moreover, a canonical correlation shows that early mathematics motivation positively
influenced achievement of counting and number concept, but not for arithmetic. To recap, the CRA
sequence utilizing gabat‘a is effective in teaching early numeral interventions for students who
struggle in mathematics. This pattern of instructional intervention could be, robust techniques of
counting and number concept and arithmetic teaching in the future, which integrated with classroom
activities if teachers want to increase students‘ early numerical performance and early mathematics
motivation. Practical implications, limitation of the study, and suggestions for future research in this
area are provided.
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Keywords
concrete fading strategy, gabat‘a, achievement, motivation, MD