Effects of an ancient Chinese mathematics enrichment programme on junior college students' attitudes towards mathematics

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of an Ancient Chinese Mathematics Enrichment Programme (ACMEP) on students’ attitudes towards mathematics at the junior college level. The objective is to determine if there is a significant difference in the attitudes of first-year junior college students towards mathematics before and after the administration of the ACMEP. A single-group pretest-posttest quasi- experimental design is adopted. A pilot study was conducted prior to the actual study to identify and minimise the effects of confounding factors associated with the selected research design. The independent variable in this study is the ACMEP, with ‘attitudes towards mathematics’ as the dependent variable. A mathematics attitudes scale was adapted using items from the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scales. A total of 37 students took part in this study. The mathematics attitudes scale was administered prior to the ACMEP intervention, and after the ACMEP intervention. The ACMEP intervention consisted of 4 sessions of one hour duration each, held once a week, conducted during curriculum time. Participants provided qualitative feedback on their experiences of the ACMEP in the form of reflections. Cronbach’s alpha reliability analyses were performed to determine the internal reliabilities of the instrument. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated for the purpose of inter- correlation analyses. The parametric paired samples t-test was used to determine if there were any significant differences between the pre-ACMEP and post-ACMEP mean scores of each subscale, and also the overall mean scores of the pre-ACMEP and post-ACMEP mathematics attitudes surveys. The effect size was calculated to measure the magnitude of the treatment effect.<br><br>Results of statistical analysis revealed that the post-ACMEP mathematics attitudes survey overall mean score was significantly higher (t = 1.99, df = 31, p<0.06) than the pre-ACMEP mathematics attitudes survey overall mean score, with an effect size (d) of 0.40. Overall, the conduct of the ACMEP appeared to improve first-year junior college students’ attitudes towards mathematics.