The effects of metacognition-oriented instruction on statistics education for preservice teachers
List of Authors
  • Yuan-Horng Lin

Keyword
  • metacognitive instruction, regulation of metacognition, statistics achievement, statistic attitude

Abstract
  • The purpose of this study aims to investigate the effects of IMPROVE (Introducing the new concepts, Meta-cognitive questioning, Practicing, Reviewing, Obtaining mastery, Verification, Enrichment and remedial) instruction on university students’ statistics achievement and attitude. IMPROVE is the state-of-the-art and metacognition-oriented instruction which is to enhance reasoning by training students to use a series of self-addressed metacognitive questions. Some literatures have confirmed the effects of IMPROVE method on achievement and affect. However, little is known about its effects on university statistics instruction. This study adopts qusi-experimental design, which consists of control group and experimental group, to compare the traditional instruction method and IMPROVE instruction. Results show that these two groups perform the same causal reasoning when they are on the baseline. After both of these two groups participate one semester of statistics course, results show the experimental group has higher statistics achievement than that of control group. Similarly, experimental group also has higher score in certain dimensions of statistics attitude than that of control group. These findings support that the IMPROVE method has positive effects on university students’ statistics achievement and attitude. Based on the conclusions, some recommendations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Reference
  • 1. Bol, L., Campbell, K. D., Perez, T., & Yen, C. J. (2016). The effects of self-regulated learning training on community college students’ metacognition and achievement in developmental math courses. Community College Journal of Research and Practice,40(6), 480-495.

    2. Cashin, S. E., & Elmore, P. B. (2005). The survey of attitudes toward statistics scale: A construct validity study. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 65, 509-524.

    3. García-Santillán, A., Venegas-Martinez, F., & Escalera, M. E. (2013). Attitude toward Statistic in College Students: An Empirical Study in Public University. Journal of Statistical and Econometric Methods, 2, 43-60.

    4. Hilton, S. C., Schau, C., & Olsen, J. A. (2004). Survey of attitudes toward statistics: Factor structure invariance by gender and by administration time. Structural Equation Modeling, 11, 92-109.

    5. Holton, D., & Clarke, D. (2006). Scaffolding and metacognition. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 37(2), 127-143.

    6. Khavenson, T., Orel, E., & Tryakshina, M. (2012). Adaptation of survey of attitudes towards statistics (SATS 36) for Russian sample. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46, 2126-2129.

    7. Kramarski, B., & Revach, T. (2009). The challenge of self-regulated learning in mathematics teachers' professional training. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 72, 379-399.

    8. Mevarech, Z. R., & Amrany, C. (2008). Immediate and delayed effects of meta-cognitive instruction on regulation of cognition and mathematics achievement. Metacognition and Learning, 3(2), 147-157.

    9. Mevarech, Z. R., & Fan, L. (2018). Cognition, metacognition, and mathematics literacy. In Y. J. Dori, Z. R. Mevarech, D. R. Baker (Eds.). Cognition, Metacognition, and Culture in STEM Education (pp. 261-278). Springer, Cham.

    10. Mevarech, Z. R., & Kramarski, B. (1997). IMPROVE: A multidimensional method for teaching mathematics in heterogeneous classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 34, 365-394.

    11. Mevarech, Z., & Fridkin, S. (2006). The effects of IMPROVE on mathematical knowledge, mathematical reasoning and meta-cognition. Metacognition and Learning, 1, 85-97.

    12. Mevarech, Z.R., & Kramarski, B. (2014). Critical Maths for Innovative Societies: The Role of Metacognitive Pedagogies. Paris: OECD publisher,.

    13. Mills, J. D. (2004). Students' attitudes toward statistics: Implications for the future. College Student Journal, 38, 349-362.

    14. Oguz, A., & Ataseven, N. (2016). The relationship between metacognitive skills and motivation of university students. Educational Process: International Journal, 5(1), 54-64.

    15. Orman, F., & Sevgi, S. (2019). An investigation, based on some variables, into the attitudes of middle school students towards mathematics and metacognitive skills. Elementary Education Online, 19(1), 183-197.

    16. Radmehr, F., & Drake, M. (2018). An assessment-based model for exploring the solving of mathematical problems: Utilizing revised bloom’s taxonomy and facets of metacognition. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 59, 41-51.

    17. Schau, C (2003). Students’ attitudes: The ‘‘other’’ important outcome in statistics education. ASA Proceedings: Papers presented at the American Statistical Association Joints Statistical Meetings. VA: American Statistical Association, Section on Statistical Education. [CD-ROM]. pp. 3673–3681.

    18. Schau, C., Stevens, J., Dauphinee, T. L., & Del Vecchio, A. (1995). The development and validation of the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55, 868–875.

    19. Schoenfeld, A. H. (2016). Learning to think mathematically: Problem solving, metacognition, and sense making in mathematics (Reprint). Journal of Education, 196(2), 1-38.

    20. Spence, D. J., Bailey, B., & Sharp, J. L. (2017). The Impact of Student-Directed Projects in Introductory Statistics. Statistics Education Research Journal, 16(1), 240-261.

    21. Stanisavljevic, D., Trajkovic, G., Marinkovic, J., Bukumiric, Z., Cirkovic, A. & Milic, N. (2014). Assessing Attitudes towards Statistics among Medical Students: Psychometric Properties of the Serbian Version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS). PLoS ONE, 9(11). Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pmc/articles/ PMC4236124/ pdf/ pone.0112567.pdf.

    22. Tarmizi, R. A., & Bayat, S. (2010). Effects of problem-based learning approach in learning of statistics among university students. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 8, 384-392.

    23. Vanhoof, S., Kuppens, S., Castro Sotos, A. E., Verschaffel, L., & Onghena, P. (2011). Measuring statistics attitudes: Structure of the survey of attitudes toward statistics (SATS-36). Statistics Education Research Journal, 10(1), 35-51.

    24. Zhao, N., Wardeska, J. G., McGuire, S. Y., & Cook, E. (2014). Metacognition: An effective tool to promote success in college science learning. Journal of College Science Teaching, 43(4), 48-54.

    25. Schau, C. (2003). Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS-36). 2021. 02. 15 retrieval from http://evaluationandstatistics.com/

    26. Ramirez, C., Schau, C., & Emmioglu, E. (2012). The importance of attitudes in statistics education. Statistics Education Research Journal, 11(2), 57-71.