Students often misinterpret the equal sign (=) as operational instead of relational. Research indicates misinterpretation of the equal sign occurs because students receive relatively little exposure to equations that promote relational understanding of the equal sign. No study, however, has examined effects of nonstandard equations on the equation…

This randomized control trial examined the efficacy of team-based learning implemented within 11th-grade social studies classes. A randomized blocked design was implemented with 26 classes randomly assigned to treatment or comparison. In the treatment classes teachers implemented team-based learning practices to support students in engaging in…

This experimental study evaluated the effectiveness of a research-based intervention, schema-based instruction (SBI), on students' proportional problem solving. SBI emphasizes the underlying mathematical structure of problems, uses schematic diagrams to represent information in the problem text, provides explicit problem solving and metacognitive…

The authors' purpose was to determine the effects of computer-based practice and conceptual interventions on computational fluency and word-problem solving of fourth- and fifth-grade students with mathematics difficulties. A randomized pretest-posttest control group design found that students assigned to the computer-based practice intervention…

Cognitive strategies are important tools for children with math difficulties (MD) in learning to solve word problems. The effectiveness of strategy training, however, depends on working memory capacity (WMC). Thus, children with MD but with relatively higher WMC are more likely to benefit from strategy training, whereas children with lower WMC may…

Math achievement in elementary school is mediated by performance and growth in number sense during kindergarten. The aim of the present study was to test the effectiveness of a targeted small-group number sense intervention for high-risk kindergartners from low-income communities. Children were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups (n = 44 in each…

This study investigated the role of strategy instruction on solution accuracy in children with and without serious math difficulties (MD) in problem solving. Children's posttest solution accuracy was compared on standardized and experimental measures as a function of strategy conditions. Strategy conditions included curriculum materials that…

This study compared the effects of delivering a supplemental, small-group tutoring intervention on the mathematics outcomes of third-grade students at risk for mathematics difficulties (MD) who were randomly assigned to either a schema-based instruction (SBI) or control group. SBI emphasized the underlying mathematical structure of additive…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of an early numeracy preventative Tier 2 intervention on the mathematics performance of first-grade students with mathematics difficulties. Researchers used a pretest-posttest control group design with randomized assignment of 139 students to the Tier 2 treatment condition and 65 students to…

This study investigated the effectiveness of an instructional program (schema-based instruction, SBI) designed to teach 7th graders how to comprehend and solve proportion problems involving ratios/rates, scale drawings, and percents. The SBI program emphasized the underlying mathematical structure of problems via schematic diagrams, focused on a…

Teachers can use culturally relevant pedagogical strategies and technologies as emerging tools to improve students' problem-solving skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate and assess the effectiveness of culturally specific computer-based instructional tasks on ninth-grade African American mathematics students. This study tried to…

This study examines whether the Problem Based Economics curriculum developed by the Buck Institute for Education improves grade 12 students' content knowledge as measured by the Test of Economic Literacy, a test refined by the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE) over decades. Students' problem-solving skills in economics were also…

With regard to transfer, is it better to provide pupils with ready-made representations or is it more effective to scaffold pupils' thinking in the process of generating their own representations with the help of peers and under the guidance of a teacher in a process of guided co-construction? The sample comprises 10 classes and 239 Grade 5…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of schema-broadening instruction (SBI), with and without explicit instruction in strategies for tackling the complexities involved in real-life (RL) math problems, on the math problem solving of third-grade students. Teachers (n = 30) were assigned randomly to 3 16-week conditions: control, SBI,…

Mathematical problem solving is a transfer challenge requiring children to develop schemas for recognizing novel problems as belonging to familiar problem types for which they know solutions. Schema-based transfer instruction (SBTI) explicitly teaches transfer features that change problems in superficial ways to make them appear novel even though…