An investigation of a targeted tuition program delivered by personal videoconferencing for students with mathematical learning difficulties.

Historically, efforts to address learning problems have focused on literacy rather than numeracy, although more recently there has been an increased awareness of the importance of improving numeracy standards for all Australian school students. Students with learning problems located in rural and remote areas seem to be particularly disadvantaged as they lack access to specialist expertise and intervention. The use of personal videoconferencing (PVC) has the potential to provide access to specialist programs for all students in mathematics. However, no data had been presented on how a remote delivery modality influences the effectiveness of intervention targeting fundamental skills and knowledge in mathematics for students with mathematics learning difficulties (MLDs). This thesis describes a mixed-methods study comparing the effectiveness of an individual, conceptual instruction based, tuition program targeting number sense and basic number facts delivered by PVC (n = 20) and face-to-face (n = 10) for upper primary and middle school students (years 4 – 9) with mathematical learning difficulties (MLDs). The aim of the study was to investigate the relative efficacy of PVC and face-to-face tuition on quantitative measures of fluency with basic number facts (accuracy and speed), performance on higher order mathematics skills and mathematics anxiety levels of students with MLDs. Qualitative data was collected to investigate student experiences (structured interviews) and classroom teachers’ perceptions (open-ended questionnaire) of the PVC tuition program. Findings emerging from comparisons of pre- and post-test quantitative data were: (1) improved accuracy with basic number facts on all tasks except addition (effect sizes of 0.30 – 0.52) regardless of delivery modality; (2) improved accuracy on more of the basic number facts tasks (all tasks except addition) for the PVC group than the face-to-face group (multiplication and division only); (3) improvements on standardised tests for both the PVC and face-to-face groups (effect sizes of 1.08 and 0.69, respectively); (4) lower mathematics anxiety levels for the PVC group (estimated effect size of 0.4). Findings from the qualitative data analyses showed that most of the student respondents reported positive experiences of the PVC tuition program and the perceptions of classroom teachers about the PVC respondents’ experiences were mostly consistent with those reported by the students themselves. The findings from this small scale study provide initial evidence suggesting that similar gains in basic fact fluency and performances on higher order skills can be achieved following a targeted tuition program delivered by PVC and face-to-face for students with MLDs. In addition, intervention delivered via PVC may reduce the mathematics anxiety of these students. These findings, which should be interpreted with caution due to the heterogeneous nature of the participants and the small and uneven sizes of the tuition groups, may have implications for teachers preparing upper primary and middle school students for national testing programs. Rather than ‘teaching to the test’, that is, spending most instruction time practising sample test items, focusing on basic skills and concepts may be more productive for students with MLDs. However, further research is required to confirm and refine these findings to determine the most effective way of assisting students with MLDs living in regional and remote locations.