Manipulatives are considered a best practice for educating students with disabilities, but little research exists which examines virtual manipulatives as tool for supporting students in mathematics. This project investigated the use of a virtual manipulative through the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives--polynominoes (i.e., tiles)--as a…

Part of a larger initiation mixed methods study (Greene, Caracelli, & Graham, 1989), this paper discusses the changes in young children's learning performance and efficiency (one element of the quantitative portion of the larger study) during clinical interviews in which each child interacted with a variety of virtual manipulative…

Computer technology, when coupled with reform-based teaching practices, has been shown to be an effective way to support student learning of mathematics. The quality of the technology itself, as well as how it is used, impacts how much students learn. Interactive simulations are dynamic virtual environments similar to virtual manipulatives that…

This study investigated how the use of virtual manipulatives in integer instruction impacts student achievement for integer addition and subtraction. Of particular interest was the influence of using virtual manipulatives on students' ability to create and translate among representations for integer computation. The research employed a…

This study investigated the effects of two generative learning activities on students' academic achievement of the part-whole meaning of rational numbers while using virtual manipulatives. Third-grade students were divided randomly in two groups to evaluate the effects of two generative learning activities: answering-questions and…

This study examined the influence of virtual manipulatives on different achievement groups during a teaching experiment in four fifth-grade classrooms. During a two-week unit focusing on two rational number concepts (fraction equivalence and fraction addition with unlike denominators) one low achieving, two average achieving, and one high…

Both virtual and physical manipulatives are reported as effective learning tools when used with different groups of students in a variety of contexts to learn mathematical content. The use of multiple representations and the flexibility to translate among those representational forms facilitates students' learning and has the potential to deepen…

With recent advances in computer technology, it is no surprise that the manipulation of objects in mathematics classrooms now includes the manipulation of objects on the computer screen. These objects, referred to as "virtual manipulatives," are essentially replicas of physical manipulatives placed on the World Wide Web in the form of computer…

This study investigated the impact of virtual manipulatives on first grade students' academic achievement as well as on student attitudes, behaviors, and interactions. Thirty-one (31) first grade students were randomly assigned to either a treatment or control group. Both groups studied identical objectives, but the treatment group used virtual…