The research literature concerning traditionally aged college mathematics students' who require remediation, in beginning Algebra topics, states that these students lack confidence in their mathematical skills, have experienced failure and frustration in the past, have low self confidence issues with respect to mathematics and often lack…

In 2010, homeschooling was increasing in prevalence in the United States. Yet, little was known about the academic achievement of these students as they matriculated into colleges and universities. The purpose of this mixed methods sequential explanatory study was to examine the academic success achieved by the homeschooled population (N = 273)…

Visit with any university math faculty member throughout the United States, and you will soon hear how the freshman students are not prepared to be successful in introductory college algebra classes. The opinions are varied regarding why the students are unsuccessful; however, the concern and frustration is universal. According to American College…

Fifty percent of college-bound students graduate from high school underprepared for mathematics at the post-secondary level. As a result, thirty-five percent of college students take developmental mathematics courses. What is even more shocking is the high failure rate (ranging from 35 to 42 percent) of students enrolled in developmental…

Reform in mathematics instruction at the college level has been slow to arrive (Dossey, Halvorson, & McCrone, 2008), and many institutions of higher learning still follow the calculus model, while fewer and fewer students need calculus for their chosen areas of study (Ganter & Barker, 2003). Instead, mathematics that is applicable and transferable…

Only recently have school districts across the nation begun to offer Algebra I to all eighth grade students. Currently, most eighth grade Algebra I curriculum does not have a national consistent focus of topics or level of rigor. A key issue of implementing Algebra I in eighth grade is defining national Algebra I concepts and skills that students…

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) that adapt to an individual student's needs have shown significant improvement in achievement over non-adaptive instruction (Murray 1999). This improvement occurs due to the individualized instruction and feedback that an ITS provides. In order to achieve the benefits that ITSs provide, we must find a way to…

In this study, the authors wanted to examine whether success on items testing basic equivalence knowledge, such as the meaning of the equal sign and ability to solve problems such as 3 + 5 = 4 + _, predicted success on items testing more advanced algebraic thinking (i.e. principles of equality and solving equations that use letter variables). This…

How can schools respond to the call to equip all students with the math skills required in college and the workforce when students are working at widely varying skill levels? Offering extended instructional time in algebra, or double-dose instruction, offers one potential solution to this dilemma and has become an increasingly popular approach for…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires states to test students in reading and math and identify them as below proficient, proficient, or advanced. Schools are held accountable only for ensuring that students test proficient or better (both considered passing), leading to concerns that a focus on increasing the percentage of students testing…

Textbooks, like many other resources teachers have at hand, are meant to be an aid for instruction; however there is little research with textbooks or on their potential to develop metacognitive knowledge. Metacognitive knowledge has received substantial attention in the literature, in particular for its relationship with problem-solving in…

In the past year, there was an overall decrease in dropouts at all grade levels in Maryland, with the largest decrease occurring among students in grade 12. Not surprisingly, principals across the state discovered that alternative assessment strategies that were designed to help students from special populations actually worked for all students.…

In a small-scale, 8-month teaching experiment, the author aimed to establish and maintain "mathematical caring relations" (MCRs) (Hackenberg, 2005c) with 4 6th-grade students. From a teacher's perspective, establishing MCRs involves holding the work of orchestrating mathematical learning for students together with an orientation to…

This correspondence reports on a case study conducted in the Master's-level Machine Learning (ML) course at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden. The students participated in a self-assessment test and a diagnostic test of prerequisite subjects, and their results on these tests are correlated with their achievement of the course's learning…

The current study identified socioeconomic status (SES) group differences in student performance on an eighth grade mathematics assessment derived from the Third/Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2003. Differential item functioning (DIF) methodology was applied to examine SES group differences on item performance for…