The Effect Of Journal Writing On Student Achievement In High School Precalculus PDF Download

The demands of local, state, and national mandates on the classroom teacher became overwhelming to me. I decided that it must be possible to work towards several goals without doing several tasks. As a result, I implemented writing would affect student achievement. The study was implemented with 22 pre-calculus students during the first nine-week term of 2007-2008 school year at Benton Community Schools. Existing student attitudes towards math were assessed with a survey at the beginning of the study and reassessed at the conclusion of the study. A pretest of pre-calculus concepts was given at the beginning and at the conclusion of the study. Questions were split between skill-based questions, which required a numeric response, and conceptual-based questions, which required a numeric response, and conceptual-based questions, which required a written explanation. Students also wrote in a journal an average of two times per week. Two formal writing assignments were also given throughout the nine-week study. Results showed an increase in the number of students showing a positive attitude towards math along with an increase in student achievement. These results may be due to the implementation of writing in the mathematic curriculum.