Brad Bailey
North Georgia College & State University
The Effects of Modified Moore Method on Attitudes and Efficacy of Students in Precalculus
This talk will include a description of an EAF supported quasi-experimental study of the effects of a Modified Moore Method (MMM) on students in Precalculus. There were three instructors involved in this study, each teaching both a control (traditional lecture) and treatment (MMM) section, for a total of six sections of Precalculus.
We examined the students’ self-efficacy and task-specific efficacy as well as their attitudes and beliefs about mathematics using a survey, which was given twice in each section of the study. We studied the impact of the method on performance by administering a uniform final exam in all six sections.
Most of this presentation will consist of summarizing the statistically significant differences between the treatment and control sections. For instance, looking at overall control versus treatment, there was a gain in the MMM sections and, although there was no statistically significant difference in performance among males in this study, there was a significant gain in final exam score for females in the MMM sections.
There were also some interesting differences between the self-efficacies and task-specific efficacies of the treatment and control sections, which varied slightly by instructor.