A Comparison of iPads and Worksheets on Math Skills of High School Students with Emotional Disturbance

Abstract

: The authors used an alternating treatments design to compare the effects of a worksheet condition and an iPad condition on math fluency and active academic engagement during a high school math class in an alternative school setting. Following group instruction, the three participants engaged in independent seatwork either by completing problems on a worksheet or completing problems presented on an iPad. Based on visual analyses, students solved more math problems correctly in less time and demonstrated higher levels of active engagement in the iPad condition as compared to the worksheet condition. Social validity assessments indicated that the teacher and three students preferred the iPad condition to the worksheet condition during the math lessons. A discussion on study limitations, implications, and future research directions is included.

The Effect of Mobile Technology as an Active Student Response System on the Acquisition of U.S. History Content of Secondary Students with Specific Learning Disabilities

“…Their decrease in their rate of errors per minute indicated that they were also becoming more accurate in their responses. These findings are consistent with the findings of Haydon et al (2012) who reported that students increased their rate of correct responses after using a math-based application on an iPad. Overall, the results were positive and are consistent with the literature on ASR, which suggests that ASR increases content area fluency (Axtell, McCallum, Bell, & Poncy, 2009;Cullen, Keesey, Alber-Morgan, & Wheaton, 2013).…”

“…In those studies, students with disabilities who were exposed to supportive, corrective, and immediate feedback were more likely to: (a) The findings of this study also suggest that using mobile devices, such as iPads, may increase achievement in core content areas among students with SLD. These results support the findings of Harmon (2011), Haydon et al (2012), Neely et al (2013), andRisconsente (2012). In those studies, participants demonstrated an increase in learning gains in the content areas of math and reading.…”

“…Haydon et al (2012) also explored the effectiveness of iPads in math. The researchers conducted a study using an alternating treatments design to compare the effects of using worksheets and iPads on the math skills of three high school students with emotional disturbance.…”

Middle school mathematics teachers' experiences with student learning using the hands-on equations iPad application: a narrative inquiry

“…Recent research (Haydon et al, 2012) indicated that students demonstrated a noticeable increase in mathematics achievement when the iPad was used as opposed to the use of traditional books and worksheets. Rosen and Beck-Hill (2012) reported similar findings by stating that technology can assist in closing the achievement gap while incorporating higher order thinking skills in students.…”

“…Students have demonstrated a noted increase in mathematical achievement with the use of iPad, when compared with the use of traditional books and worksheets (Haydon et al, 2012;Rosen and Beck-Hill, 2012). Bannon, Martin and Nunes-Bufford (2012) stated that after the 2010 release of iPad, schools began to implement this mobile device into classrooms based on the potential impact on student learning.…”