Completed: Understanding Students' Mathematical Competencies: An Exploration of the Impact of Contextualizing Mathematical Problems

Principal Investigator: R. J. Sternberg
Co-Principal Investigator: Linda Jarvin
Project Director: Linda Jarvin

Description: This project is aimed at one specific aspect of mathematical competency, namely, its application in and transfer to different contexts, and particularly, more practical versus more academic contexts. The basic idea will be to test, through randomized-assignment experimental designs, whether teaching math through practical learning/problem solving really improves mathematical processing and strengthens mathematical knowledge, at least for some children. Improving mathematical proficiency is a concern of national significance. Although many studies have addressed the issues of the impact of context on mathematical performance and competencies, most of these studies have not been tightly controlled. There are typically, as far as we can tell, many different variables whose values vary simultaneously; as a result, it is hard to say what factors are responsible for the seeming advantage of making mathematical material practical, if indeed there is any advantage at all. Thus, the main question of the study is whether making mathematical problems more practical increases performance on and knowledge of how to solve them. In other words, will students solve mathematical problems better, and learn how to solve them better, if the problems appear practical to them?

Funding Agency: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences
IRB Approval By: Tufts University Faculty of Arts and Science Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects
Funding Period: 2003 - 2007