| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to evaluate one instructional activity that could be
used by agricultural science teachers to improve math performance of students, grades 7-
12. The treatment group (11 schools, 218 students) used math warm-up problems that
coincided with topics covered in Agriscience 101, while the control group (13 schools,
170 students) did not use contextual warm-up problems. Both groups were tested with a
30-item word problem exam. Students and teachers in each group were asked questions
regarding demographics. Students and teachers in the treatment group were also asked
questions related to their perceptions of the activity and TAKS-related materials. The
results of the study showed no statistically significant difference in the performance of
the groups. The scores for schools in the treatment group had a mean of 18.95 (SD
4.33), while the scores for schools in the control group had a mean of 20.14 (SD 2.35).
Hispanic students in the treatment group outperformed all other subgroups in both
experimental groups. A majority of students in the treatment group perceived the
difficulty level of the warm-up problems as "neutral" (42.2%) or "easy" (29.9%) and did not enjoy doing the warm-up problems (71.8%). Over 40% of the students in the
treatment group believed that the warm-up problems were "absolutely" (4.9%) or
"probably" (36.8%) beneficial for improving their math skills. Teachers in the treatment
group perceived their students' attitudes about doing the warm-up problems as favorable
(40%) or indifferent (40%) and all perceived the warm-up problems as being "very
beneficial" (33.3%) or "beneficial" (66.6%). Furthermore, teachers were almost
unanimous in expressing their desire for more TAKS-related materials based on an
agricultural context. In summary, this study showed that the warm-up problems activity
did not significantly improve math performance overall, but seemed to have some
benefits for Hispanic students. | en |
