Grades 3-4 students in an EALP-based early algebra intervention made significant improvements in constructing function tables and outperformed control students at posttest¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r1 · q3
Currency · newest study 2011 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Grade 3 and 4 experimental students significantly improved in completing a function table and outperformed control students at posttest (p < 0.01), while grade 5 students were already fairly successful at pretest. → Stephens 2011

Evidence¶

Stephens 2011¶

Stephens, A. C., Isler, I., Marum, T., Blanton, M. L., Knuth, E. J., & Gardiner, A. M. (2011). From recursive pattern to correspondence rule: Developing students' abilities to engage in functional thinking. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED585054

q3 · i? · causal · r1

Pre-post quasi-experimental comparison of approximately 300 students in six experimental and ten control classrooms; Table 1 reports proportions rising from .359 to .868 (grade 3) and .512 to .932 (grade 4) for experimental students, with "oXtperformed control stXdents at posttest" (p < 0.01).

"Grades 3±4 e[perimental stXdents made significant improvements over the coXrse of the intervention and oXtperformed control stXdents at posttest."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Algebraic Thinking — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Experimental students significantly outperformed control students at posttest in expressing a functional relationship in words (grades 3-4) and in symbols (all grades), with no students writing correct symbolic rules at pretest — related
• After the intervention, posttest differences in identifying patterns in a function table were only marginally significant at grade 3, but experimental fifth graders more often described covariational relationships than recursive patterns — related
• On a 'far' prediction to 10 tables, both conditions improved with no significant posttest differences in correctness, but the experimental group increasingly used a function rule as its strategy — related