High school application of a mathematical software supporting problem-solving

Abstract

Although number theory is one of the oldest and most natural mathematical pursuits, some of its topics are not part of the Hungarian high schools’ mathematics curriculum. We examined whether our custom-made web application, including a closely-related task collection and a collaboration interface, may support the problem-solving strategy of students in these tasks, thus supporting their introduction to high school education. For this purpose, we contacted 4 high schools from Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county (N=352) after developing the website, preparing the number theory task collection, and creating the cooperation interface. Subjects were randomly assigned to an experimental (EXP) or control (CON) group, where members of EXP but not CON and their teachers had access to our website when studying the new number theory topics. We hypothesized that members of EXP will show better test results as compared to CON, indicating the potential benefits of our website during the introduction of new topics. Mann-Whitney U test revealed better overall results in EXP as compared to CON (p < .001). Moreover, Kruskal-Wallis tests showed that subjects EXP vs. CON had higher points in each task (all p < .05), indicating the success of our website. We aim to increase the sample size and to develop additional web applications in our future studies.