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Description:
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This Research and Design (R &D ) study models the methodology
necessary to replicate an online assessment instrument designed to assess
student skills and facets of thought while understanding Multiple Meanings and
Models of Fractions (MUL ) in college level developmental mathematics . The
researcher used cognitive research done in the area of fractions to design this
instrument that both documents and assesses facets of thought or reasoning
strategies used by students . The final facet cluster is a table that ranks these
facets from least to most problematic , documenting the student facets of thought
across the content objective MUL .
Over 500 student and teacher participants were used in the design and
development of Fraction Diagnoser . All participants were affiliated with college
developmental mathematics in Texas , representing four colleges and
universities . Forty -eight student participants were individually interviewed to
ascertain facets of understanding on the topic of MUL . Seven teacher
participants were individually interviewed as to the effectiveness of Fraction Diagnoser in the classroom after the final step of the R &D cycle . Content experts
were used to design the questions assessing skills and facets .
Fraction Diagnoser was built using the Borg and Gall R &D cycle as its
blueprint . Nine of the ten steps of the R &D cycle were used in the development
of the instrument , excluding just the final product revision due to cost and time
restraints . According to Borg and Gall (1996 ) , a dissertation R &D should be
limited to a few steps , but all of the steps used for this R &D allowed for the
researcher to completely address all of the research questions . During the steps
of the R &D cycle , validation and reliability analyses were done to statistically
address the effectiveness of Fraction Diagnoser . Final interviews with the
teacher participants supported findings in recent research on the effective use of
online assessment . Implications for practice and recommendations for further
study were also addressed . |