005236 McBean C H;Bourne P A (NO, Univ of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, Email: paulbourne1@gmail.com) : Use of technology in the teaching of mathematics in Jamaica. J advd Res appl math Statistic 2016, 1(3-4), 55-87.
Mathematics, therefore, as a subject plays and continues to play a crucial role in the advancement of technology, science, engineering and in several other areas of study. In the global environment which has become highly technological driven, people are called upon to utilize mathematical tools and/or techniques and these require educators to impart the required skills to pupils. In Jamaica, the reality is 58 out of every 100 candidates that sat CSEC mathematics in 2003 failed it, which has been ongoing for decades and accounted for the shortage of mathematics teachers in the secondary educational system as well as to universities and colleges in the discipline. This study evaluates the use of information technology (IT) is changing mathematics performances of students in a selected high school in Jamaica. The sample was from a non-traditional high school in an urban area where the researcher has been a teacher for many years. The research was conducted at this particular school because of convenience to the researcher. In this study, the researcher used "convenience" sampling procedure defined by McMillan (2000), where a group of participants is selected because of availability. There were a total of 53 students in the study, 27 students in the experimental group and 26 in the control group. Participants were randomly assigned to each group. The two grade 10 classes were selected to carry out the study because these students were the ones that did the subject Information Technology. The study was conducted over a four week period during the 2014. On average, the overall attitude towards mathematics among the sampled respondents of those in the control group on the pre-test was 49.1±8.8, 95% Cl: 45.5 - 52.6 compared to 48.1±7.6, 95%CI: 45.1 - 51.1, with the paired sample t-test indicated that this is not statistical different -tzs = 0.389, P = 0.701. A positive statistical correlation emerged between attitude and mathematics grades among those in the experimental group. Simply put an improvement in attitude of students towards mathematics as a result of the integrative teaching method in IT classes result in better mathematics grades of these students - rxy= 0.112, P = 0.005. Teachers of information technology and other subjects can configure assignments that require the students to employ mathematical concepts as well as implore pupils to apply mathematics in problem solving issues in their subject areas.
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