Abstract:

Failing to master foundational math skills in early childhood puts students in jeopardy of later academic, personal, and professional deficits. In order to address these potential issues, math interventions that can be employed early on in the education process and that are effective for all students are required. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) can help students from all backgrounds improve their math skills and succeed academically. The current study evaluates a computer adaptive program's efficacy in teaching young learners key early math skills. Kindergarten students in a public school district in a midwestern state were given access to an adaptive math curriculum. The school district comprised predominantly African American (62%) and included a meaningful percentage of students enrolled in special education programs (17%). Usage was monitored weekly for each student. The MAP Growth assessment was administered to all students at the beginning and end of the school year to assess statistical equivalence between students prior to the use of the computer-adaptive program and to assess differences in mathematical skill at the end of the school year between students who used the program to fidelity and those with less usage. It was hypothesized that students who used the program for a meaningful amount of time, to fidelity, during the school year would score higher on a math assessment at the end of the year compared to students who did not use the computer-adaptive program as much. Kindergarten students who used the computer-adaptive program for more than 1,500 minutes were considered to have used the program to fidelity, while low-use kindergarten students used the computer-adaptive program for less than 800 minutes. Independent samples t-tests examining group differences in end-of-year scores between high-use and low-use groups revealed that the high-use group using the computer-adaptive program performed significantly better than the low-use group across all subskills, including operations and algebraic thinking, numbers and operations, measurement and data, and geometry. Meaningful effect sizes were found across all subskills ranging from 0.25-0.38. The largest effects found were for the overall RIT math scores and the measurement and data subskill. Results were further parsed for students participating in and not participating in special education programs. Students in special education programs benefited immensely from high-use of the computer-adaptive program and achieved significantly higher scores than low-use students. This effect held for all mathematical subskills tested. Additionally, students in special education programs with high-use of the computer-adaptive program achieved scores comparable to low-use students not in special education programs, showing that both students with and without special education status benefited from using the math program in relative terms. The results of this study demonstrate the benefits that an early math-focused CAI intervention can bring to all students at a critical period in their education. In particular, this study indicates that CAI can be well suited to provide this essential early instruction to those students that may need it most.

Keywords:

CAI, Math, Special Education.