A COMPARISON OF LEARNING ACHIEVEMENT, CRITICAL THINKING ABILITIES, AND SATISFACTIONS TOWARDS MATHEMATICS LEARNING OF MATHAYOMSUKSA 1 STUDENTS STUDYING FACTIONS AND DECIMALS THROUGH STAD TECHNIQUES WITH REORDERED CONTENTS AND CONVENTIONAL ACTIVITIES

Abstract

Effective mathematics activities merely depend on a variety of techniques and
teaching methods which are appropriate for students. Besides, reordered contents as
learning activities are assumed to be one of the ways to allow teaching of mathematics to
be more effective. The study was aimed to compare Mathayomsuksa 1 student’s
mathematics achievements, critical thinking abilities, and satisfactions towards the learning
after studying fractions and decimals through STAD techniques with reordered contents and
conventional activities. The sample consisted of 96 Mathayomsuksa 1 students of Borabue
Wittayakarn school, Borabue district, Mahasarakham province, in the second semester of the
academic year 2010. The cluster random sampling was employed to frame an experimental
group using STAD techniques with reordered contents and a control group using
conventional activities, each of which included 48 students whom were drawn from the two
classrooms. Three research instruments were employed: (1) two types of lesson plans, each
of which was composed of 20 one-hour-lessons about fractions and decimals which were
planned based on STAD techniques with reordered contents and conventional activities; (2)
30-item-mathematics achievement test with 5 multiple choices on fractions and decimals for
Mathayomsuksa 1 students, with the item’s difficulty ranging from .33 to .95, the item’s
discrimination power ranging from .27 to .92, and the item-total reliability of .92; (3) 5-scale
rating for satisfactions toward mathematics learning, consisting of 20 items with the
discrimination power ranging from .35 to .65 and the item-total reliability of .80. Statistics for
data analyses included mean, standard deviation and one-way MANOVA and t-test were
used to test hypotheses.
The results are as follows :
The students taught by STAD techniques with reordered contents about
fractions and decimals had higher mathematics achievement and satisfactions toward
mathematics learning than the students taught by conventional activities did at the .01 level
of significance, but there was no difference in critical thinking abilities for the two groups.
In conclusion, STAD techniques with reordered contents could be
mathematics activities enhancing students’ participation in establishing learning
activities which help boost effective teaching and learning of mathematics. Therefore,
mathematics teachers should be encouraged to make use of STAD techniques with
reordered contents as mathematics activities.