Current Knowledge and Future Directions: Proportional Reasoning Interventions for Students with Learning Disabilities and Mathematics Difficulties

Abstract

The purpose of this systematic review was to examine the effectiveness of proportional reasoning interventions for students with learning disabilities (LD) or mathematics difficulty (MD). We evaluated fifth to ninth grade interventions on proportional reasoning content, instructional features, and disability and difficulty identification. The nine studies met inclusion criteria yielded intervention effects ranging from g = −0.10 to 1.87 and from Tau- U = 0.88 to 1.00. Two of the nine studies were deemed high quality and very few studies included participants with LD. Although most studies identified the concepts addressed in the interventions, authors rarely provided in-depth descriptions of how the concept was taught. The results suggest that proportional reasoning interventions for students with LD and MD is under investigated. We posit that intervention research in proportional reasoning can and should be expanded upon and offer suggestions in terms of how researchers can continue to develop the knowledge base.

Exploring students’ proportional reasoning in solving guided-unguided area conservation problem: A case of Indonesian students

“…The conclusions were drawn only based on visual looks without further proof that involved quantitative reasoning, such as calculating the area of each constructor. Non-proportional reasoning based on visual looks often occurred in children, especially elementary school students, because they were still dominant in their concrete operational thinking (Nelson et al, 2022;Saleh et al, 2018). It was also supported by previous studies (Sari & Fong, 2022;Schoevers et al, 2020), where children could use appropriate language for length measurements using both paired words ("shorter" and "higher") and comparative words ("longer" and "shorter") based on the appearance of the constituent shapes.…”

A Meta-Analysis and Quality Review of Mathematics Interventions Conducted in Informal Learning Environments with Caregivers and Children

“…The results of this quality review (average QI rating of 0.58) were less favorable than the results of previous quality reviews of math interventions conducted in formal classroom settings (e.g., Jitendra et al, 2021;Nelson, Hunt, et al, 2022). Experts have suggested that study reporting quality may improve with the adoption of QIs across various fields (American Psychological Association, 2008).…”

“…Previous researchers have examined study quality in school-based math intervention meta-analyses. The studies reported varying results, with average study reporting quality ratings (scale of 0 to 1) ranging from, for example, 0.77 for geometry interventions for 4 th - to 12 th -grade students with learning disabilities (Liu et al, 2019) to 0.83 for tier 2 math interventions for students with math difficulty (Jitendra et al, 2021) to 0.87 for proportional reasoning interventions for students with math difficulty (Nelson, Hunt, et al, 2022). Wide ranges in study reporting quality across math interventions within the same meta-analysis have been documented (e.g., Stevens et al, 2018).…”

A Systematic Review of Research Syntheses on Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Difficulties

“…With regard to mathematics interventions, each instructional strategy is distinct and accomplishes different goals. All six instructional strategies are found within syntheses on a wide variety of content areas, including fractions (e.g., Shin & Bryant, 2015), proportional reasoning (e.g., Nelson et al., 2020), addition (e.g., Trifiletti et al., 1984), subtraction (e.g., Fuchs et al., 2006), multiplication and division (e.g., Xin et al., 2017), and word‐problem solving (e.g., Shiah et al., 1994; Shin & Bryant, 2017). However, reviews focused on specific instructional strategies are less common, leading to gaps in the knowledgebase regarding the effects of strategies for different populations of students.…”