This report describes a program for improving attitudes towards mathematics and problem solving in order to improve performance in these areas. The targeted population consists of two high school geometry classes. The school is located in a western suburb of a major mid-western city. The problems of negative attitudes towards mathematics and…

In the popular view, somehow, rural schools often just do not measure up. The world over, rural schools generally get short shrift in the allocation of resources and prestige, their lack of urbanness often a self-fulfilling indicator of deficiency. As a result perhaps, rural students may perform, on average, less well than others in terms of…

Over 400 bilingual Hispanic students in grades four and five took the same mathematics achievement test in Spanish and English. Students performed better when tested in English than in Spanish and when tested on concepts than on applications. (MNS)

Summarizes research from the California Assessment Program (1980) and the Foundation for Child Development (1976) concerning the relationship between student academic achievement and television viewing habits. Television in children's lives today and academic achievement--reading, mathematics, written expression--are discussed. Four references are…

Describes computer program designed to diagnose student arithmetic achievement in following categories: number concepts, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Capabilities of the program are discussed, including immediate diagnosis, tailored testing, test security (unique tests generated), generative responses (nonmultiple choice),…

Research on the cognitive components of academic achievement subjected White South African schoolchildren to several visual perception tests. Results indicated an association between measures of visual perception and tests of reading and arithmetic performance. Cognitive complexity emerged as an important differentiating feature of perceptual…

Selected mathematics education research on the role and nature of women in mathematics is reviewed. Studies are quoted which indicate that there are no inherent factors which keep girls from learning mathematics at the same level as boys, and that intervention programs can be effective. (MP)

National assessment data on student performance in several phases of algebra are reported. It is noted that this performance has not reached the point of mastery even for most students with two years of algebra and a year of geometry. However, the data are not thought to suggest complete failure. (MP)

Details are provided about the American High School Mathematics Examination (AHSME), the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), and the USA Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO). The AIME will first be offered in 1983 as an intermediate examination between the AHSME and the USAMO. An appendix provides several sample problems. (MP)

A total of 169 third-grade pupils were used as the final sample in an examination of information matching ability involving haptic, auditory, and visual modalities in relation to mathematics achievement. Significant correlations were found between matching abilities involving the haptic modality and mathematics achievement, higher than found with…

Develops an alternative analysis to the Peabody Individual Achievement Tests' authors' suggested use of a pairwise comparison system to determine when one academic area is significantly different from another. Suggests determining academic strengths and weaknesses relative to a child's average performance on the entire test. (Author/JAC)

The possible effects and importance of student ability in language use and mathematical reasoning are reviewed. Data from the National University of Lesotho on incoming science students indicated that the relationships between language proficiency and mathematics achievement are quite complex. (MP)

Four spatial tests were given to 90 children enrolled in grades 2 through 7. Findings showed high mathematics achievers scored significantly higher than low mathematics achievers on all four tests, and boys scored higher than girls on the two tests measuring complex spatial abilities. (DT)

An innovation-focused Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study of 13 nations participating in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) found universal unhappiness with the state of mathematics and science education. There was no link among successful test scores, improvement goals, or satisfaction of…

Compared performance of kindergartners exposed to mathematics content at storybook time and given story-related mathematics play materials to performance of a control group. Found that the experimental group showed a greater preference and aptitude for mathematics activities than the control group. (EV)