Interventions Supporting Children’s Mathematics School Success

Abstract

In today’s society, mathematics is one of the most important competencies imparted in school. To improve children’s mathematical skills, existing interventions and trainings in mathematical learning address different proficiency levels and age groups, take place in different settings, can focus on a single task or a set of different tasks, be applied for different durations, and address different types of numerical content. However, when such trainings are evaluated, this often happens only insufficiently. In this review, we derive and apply four evaluation criteria in a meta-analysis of mathematical intervention literature: (i) evaluation with the actual target group, (ii) evaluation in comparison to a performance-matched control group, (iii) evaluation in comparison to a comparable alternative intervention, and (iv) separate evaluation of subcomponents in the case of multi-componential approaches. Based on these criteria, we review current intervention approaches, paying particular attention to how they were evaluated. A meta-analysis on 39 effect sizes extracted from 37 studies revealed a reliable impact of three of the above-proposed evaluation criteria on the reported efficacy of an intervention. In contrast, sample and methodological characteristics like grade level of participants or training duration were not associated with effect sizes. These data indicate that the reported efficacy of an intervention in mathematical learning may depend not only on the type of intervention conducted, but also on the thoroughness of the evaluation procedure.

A Finger-Based Numerical Training Failed to Improve Arithmetic Skills in Kindergarten Children Beyond Effects of an Active Non-numerical Control Training

“…A recent metaanalysis confirmed this concern. Intervention studies without active control groups had generally larger effect sizes (Fischer et al, 2013). However, it is impossible to distinguish the contribution of intervention-unspecific and intervention-specific effects for such effect sizes.…”

“…We view as strength of our study that we used an active control group and not just a waiting control group. Note that in the child literature waiting control groups are viewed from critically to not acceptable (Fischer et al, 2013) and some authors do not include intervention studies without active control groups in their reviews (Slavin et al, 2009). The reason is that waiting control groups do not allow for the distinguishing of intervention-specific effects from intervention-unspecific effects such as attention, motivation or unspecific cognitive factors (learning how to learn) from intervention-specific effects, such as learning finger-number relations in our study.…”

“…When one reviews intervention studies, it is essential to distinguish between short-term interventions, where one component in one game or task is trained, and long-term interventions, where multiple components and tasks are trained (see Fischer et al, 2013, for an overview). Some of us have conducted single-component embodied interventions targeting embodied numerosity in different variations (e.g., Fischer et al, 2011Fischer et al, , 2015Link et al, 2013;Link et al, 2014;Dackermann et al, 2016b; for reviews see Moeller et al, , 2015Dackermann et al, 2016aDackermann et al, , 2017.…”

A systematic review of interventions for children presenting with dyscalculia in primary schools

“…Consequently, a range of targeted interventions have been developed to support learners, however, when difficulties persist in spite of such interventions, next steps are always not clear (Gillum, 2014). From identified literature, many researchers (Xin, 1999;Kroesbergen, 2003;Gersten, 2009;Slavin, 2009;Codding, 2011, & Fischer, 2013 conducted a study examining the effectiveness of specific arithmetic interventions to improve mathematical skills. However, in the pool of literature that has been identified on the topic of interventions for children presenting with dyscalculia in primary schools, there is no body of literature reported on the methodological quality and coherence of the studies.…”

Pengembangan Game Ketepatan Dadu Matematika Sebagai Penguat Motivasi Belajar Siswa Kelas 2 Sekolah Dasar

“…matematika merupakan salah satu kompetensi terpenting yang diajarkan di sekolah. Untuk meningkatkan keterampilan matematika anak-anak (Fischer, 2013) intervensi dan pelatihan yang terdapat dalam pembelajaran matematika uraian berbagai tingkat kemahiran dengan kelompok usia berbeda, dalam pengaturan yang berbeda, dapat lebih fokus pada satu tugas atau serangkaian tugas yang berbeda, diterapkan untuk durasi yang berbeda, dan menangani jenis yang berbeda.…”