Abstract
The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend the work of Hendrix concerning the effects on learning of verbalizing generalizations taught by discovery. More specifically, the present study was designed to determine: 1. If any significant differences existed among three methods of presentation, non-verbal, student verbalization only, and student verbalization followed by teacher verbalization. 2. If there existed any interaction among specific generalizations of varying difficulty, and method. Eight college algebra classes were utilized in this study. They were assigned to teachers, trained in inductive discovery teaching. Each of the classes was taught inductively four mathematical generalizations, two of which were algebraic in nature and two of which were geometric. The generalizations were chosen so that one of the algebraic generalizations and one of the geometric generalizations were more difficult to both discover and verbalize than the others. Two generalizations were taught on one day and a posttest was administered two days later. The remaining two generalizations were taught approximately one week later and again the posttest was administered two days later. The teachers were randomly assigned to two of the three methods employed in this study. A teacher using Method 1 did not request a student verbalization. A teacher using Method 2 requested after discovery a written verbalization of the generalization. A teacher using Method 3 also requested after discovery a written verbalization by the student, but then he presented a precise verbalization of the generalization on the board. The data were analyzed by analysis of variance in the following ways: ..
Partin, Harold Wayne (1973). The effect of verbalization upon certain discovered mathematical generalizations. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -157594.