Descatamiento, Klarenz D.

Lagman, Natalie Adelaide

Topic Link: https://doi.org/10.29333/pr/12595

Reference:
Esuong, U. U., Owan, V. J., Edoho, E. A., & Eni, B. E. (2023). Mathematics symbol instruction
and senior secondary students’ achievement in word problems: A quasi-experimental study.
Pedagogical Research, 8(1), em0142. https://doi.org/10.29333/pr/12595

B. Locate one refereed research article that reports results of a quasi-experimental study.
Select the article published in a journal for your field of study. Critique the article using
the following guidelines.
a. Give the title of the article, author(s), name of journal, volume, issue number, and
page numbers.
Title: Mathematics symbol instruction and senior secondary students’ achievement in
word problems: A quasi-experimental study
Authors: Uwase Uwase Esuong, Valentine Joseph Owan, Emmanuel Asuquo Edoho,
Bassey Edu Eni
Name of Journal: "Pedagogical Research."
Volume: 8, Issue 1
Issue Number: em0142
Page numbers: 8 Pages

b. What research problem was addressed?

The research problem addressed in the study was the possible effect of mathematics
symbol instruction on achievement in word problems. The study aimed to investigate whether
using a mathematics symbol instructional strategy would have a significant impact on students'
word problem achievement in secondary schools. The researchers tested two null hypotheses
related to the effect of the instructional strategy and the gender differences in achievement. The
study used a non-equivalent group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design and collected
primary data from a sample of 387 participants. The findings revealed a significant effect of the
mathematics symbol instructional strategy on students' word problem achievement.

c. What were the research questions or objectives?

1. Do students in the experimental group differ in their post-test achievement in word
problems from those in the control group?
2. Is gender a major component that can affect students' post-test achievement in world
problems between experimental and control groups?

d. Who or what was the target population?

 Target Population: 387 Senior Secondary Class One (SS1) Students in the 81
government-owned educational secondary schools in Calabar Education Zone of Cross River
State.

e. What procedures were used to select the sample?

The multistage random sampling techniques were used to select a sample of 387 students.
In the first stage, a simple random sampling technique was used to select three LGAs in Calabar
education zone for the study. In the second stage, a simple random sampling technique was used
to select the secondary schools that will participate in the study. In the third stage, simple random
sampling was used to choose the schools that would form the experimental and control group in
the study from the three selected LGAs in stage 1. At the final stage, all the students in SS1 in
each of the randomly selected schools in the LGAs were used for the study.
This sampling procedure was deemed appropriate for this study because it allowed the
researcher to have a representative sample of the LGAs that make up Calabar education zone for
adequate prediction and generalization.

f. What were the independent variables? What were their levels?

There are two independent variables in the selected research article which are:
1. Mathematics instruction that have two levels namely; symbol instructional strategy and
regular word problem teaching or also known as conventional method.
2. Gender of the students that have two levels which are Male and Female.

g. What was the dependent variable?

In this article, the researchers taken one dependent variable namely:
1. Students’ post-test achievement in mathematics word problems

g.2 Covariate
Another variable that is worth mentioning is the covariate or variable taken from respondents
that is related to the dependent variable. There is one in this study which is:
1. Pre-test scores of the students

h. At what point in the study was a treatment, if any, applied? What was the
treatment?
In the study, the term "treatment" refers to the instructional method used in the
experimental group. The treatment group was exposed to mathematics symbols and instructional
strategies for solving word problems. This was in contrast to the control group, which was
exposed to a regular word problem class using the conventional method. The treatment lasted for
one week, and the researchers administered a post-test to both groups after the treatment period.

i. What was/were the hypothesis (es) tested?

In the selected research article, the researchers stated 2 null hypothesis and their corresponding
alternatives:
HO₁: Students in the experimental group do not differ significantly in their post-test achievement
in word problems from those in the control group.
HA₁: Students in the experimental group differ significantly in their post-test achievement in
word problems from those in the control group.
HO₂: No significant gender difference exists in students’ post-test achievement in word
problems between the experimental and control groups.
HA₂: A significant gender difference exists in students’ post-test achievement in word problems
between the experimental and control groups.

j. What were the conclusions of the research?

Students exposed to the mathematics symbols instruction tend to achieve better than
those not exposed to the treatment of instruction in word problems. This finding implies that
exposing senior secondary school students to quality teaching of mathematics symbols will
enable them to decode word problems, translate the same into appropriate mathematical
expressions, and apply the proper procedures and operators in solving them. Additionally,
conclusion revealed that gender plays a significant role in moderating the effect of mathematics
symbol instruction on students’ achievement in word problems. This result is so because male
students differed significantly from their female counterparts. This implies that male students
have a better knowledge of mathematics language, specifically in solving word problems,than
females when taught using mathematics symbol instruction.

k. Write a statement about the overall quality of the research design and the
conclusions drawn.
Although the research design of the article stated in this answer is adopted. They truly
elaborate it to the readers on how they will be using the design. Additionally, they use simple
random sampling to select the LGA’s and Secondary schools that will be included and this
ensures the readers that it has a representative sample of the LGAs that make up Calabar
education zone for adequate prediction and generalization.

i. What indicators demonstrated that the study was quasi-experimental?

Aside from its title and method of collecting the data, we chose this particular study
because it provides the characteristics of a quasi-experimental research study. One factor that we
noticed is the manipulation of independent variables. The teaching instruction can be
manipulated by using various materials and techniques as the researcher’s desire. Additionally,
the research article does not assigned the student to be in a control group or experiment group
which make it quasi-experimental.