%0 Journal Article
%T Effects of MATAS Hopscotch Technique in the Teaching of Fractions and Error Patterns Made by Year 5 Pupils
%A Devaki Periasamy
%A Kamariah Abu Bakar
%A Ahmad Fauzi Mohd Ayub
%J Education Research International
%D 2014
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2014/630721
%X MATAS Hopscotch technique was created to solve the subtraction of three types of fractions. The study involved 56 pupils from two Year 5 classes. A quasi-experimental, nonrandomized control group, pretest-posttest delayed post-test was conducted on two intact groups, randomly assigned into control and experimental groups. A pretest was administered at the early stage of this study. The study described types of error made by the pupils in solving the subtraction of fractions. Rubrics, Hodes and Notling (1998), were used to describe types of error made by the pupils in the pretest and posttest. The findings in the pretest showed both groups made concept, directions, and careless errors. However, in the posttest, the experimental group made careless errors while the control group made concept, directions, and careless errors. The number of errors made by the control group was higher than that made by the experimental group. 1. Background of Study Fractions are among the most difficult topics for students to learn [1¨C3]. In Malaysia, pupils have also been identified as having difficulties with fractions and this has perpetuated to secondary schools [4¨C8]. Low ability pupils found fractions to be more difficult than decimals or whole numbers [9]. They tended to use rule-based learning more often than high ability pupils. Furthermore, low ability pupils relied on standard written algorithms more than reflecting on number sense based methods. Errors due to whole number concept are dominant among the primary pupils and even secondary students [4, 5, 10]. Fractions were viewed as part-wholes, subsets, ratios, quotients, and rational numbers [11]. Meanwhile, whole number knowledge represents numbers discretely and may therefore interfere with childrenĄ¯s construction of the concept of fraction and rational numbers that are continuous [12]. Solving whole number problems through a mental model requires only the mental movement of items into or out of a space [13]. In contrast, the fraction problems would require not only these movements, but also rotation, separation, and recombination of various amounts. Disjointed understanding of fraction concepts and operations caused studentsĄ¯ errors [1]. Research has shown that errors in fractions made by primary pupils and secondary students were due to comprehension [8, 14]. These difficulties stemmed from studentsĄ¯ lack of formal knowledge and rote memorization of the algorithms [15]. Many strategies could be used to overcome these difficulties. One of them is the mnemonic strategies which have been successful in teaching
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/edri/2014/630721/