The effect of realistic mathematics education on student achievement in 8th grades geometric objects teaching

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to answer if there is a reasonable difference on academical success of students who get education with traditional and RME approach question on “Teaching geometrical objects to 8th grade students” subject. Study group consists of 47 students which contains 21 experimental and 16 control group from “Ordu Anadolu İmam Hatip High School Project School” in Altinordu, Ordu. Experimental and control group have same academical success level, as the school which this study has runned is a school which accepts students with an exam only. After the experimental and control groups were created, a 25 question pre-test was performed to understand the level of knowledge of the group regarding geometrical objects. The same test was performed on the same groups 8 weeks later as retention test. To determine opinions of the students in experimental group regarding RME and related learning activities, semi-structured interviews are conducted. The data obtained from the pretest, posttest and retention tests were analyzed with t-test for independent samples and t-test for dependent samples and variance analysis for mixed measurements with 0.05 significance level. According to the results, it is seen that learning activities prepared according to RME approach are much more effective than learning activities prepared according to the traditional approach on students’ academic success.

Keywords: Geometrical objects, academical success, realistic mathematichs education, middle school students, eighth grade.

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