Specialist in Education, Miami University, 2019, Educational Psychology

Today professions and post-secondary opportunities in the United States in the areas of science, technology, and engineering are continuously growing and requiring students to have complex understandings of mathematical concepts. As the demand for these professions continues to grow, mathematic achievement scores in the U.S. continue to decline. The current study seeks to examine if an alternative to explicit instruction, such as play, through a multiplication fluency game, can improve mathematic motivation and multiplicative fluency. Students in two third grade classrooms were given pre and posttest curriculum-based fluency tests and surveys focused on their attitude toward math to compare results between the treatment and control classrooms. The treatment classroom played a multiplication fluency game for three days a week for four weeks while the control classroom engaged in traditional instruction. Results were examined qualitatively and quantitatively to conclude that the play intervention appears to have no significance when compared to instruction without a fluency game on mathematical fluency scores.

Committee: Sarah Watt (Committee Chair); Doris Bergen (Committee Member); Brooke Spangler-Cropenbaker (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Psychology; Mathematics; Mathematics Education

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2014, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: School Psychology

This study compared the effects of the Detect, Practice, and Repair (DPR) intervention package versus traditional Cover, Copy, and Compare (CCC) procedures in increasing multiplication math fact accuracy and fluency using an alternating treatments design with a modified control condition. Interventions were administered one-on-one across 4 fourth grade students. Three mutually exclusive multiplication sets were used with one set being assigned to each condition. Effectiveness was assessed through traditional curriculum-based measurement (CBM) procedures and through flashcard card procedures to measure accuracy. In addition, the efficiency of each intervention (i.e., amount of learning per instructional minute) was calculated. Maintenance data were collected to determine if newly learned math facts would be better maintained when taught with the DPR intervention or with the traditional CCC intervention procedures. Social validity data were collected with teachers and students to determine whether one intervention was preferred over another. Although DPR has been examined in five published research studies, it has never been examined through a one-on-one implementation or in a study directly comparing its effectiveness, efficiency, maintenance, and social validity against another intervention. In addition, this study serves as a component analysis since CCC is one component of the DPR package.

Committee: Julie Morrison Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Anne Bauer Ed.D. (Committee Member); Renee Oliver Hawkins Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education