Page 90 - Children’s mathematical development and learning needs in perspective of teachers’ use of dynamic math interviews

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Chapter 3
student progress (Cito; Janssen et al., 2005). The mathematics test is made up of a mixture of computation problems (e.g., 7500 : 250 =) and word problems. Some translated examples of word problems: The zookeeper has 75 fish. Each penguin gets 3 fish. How many penguins can the zookeeper feed?; Elsa wants to paint the wall of her room a different color. To know how much paint she needs, she must know the surface area of the wall. The wall is 6 yards long and 2.50 yards wide. What is the surface area of the wall?. Mathematical problems are presented using mathematical notation, text, and/or text with pictures. These pictures are not just decorations but provide additional information needed to solve the problem. The majority of the mathematical problems have a picture in combination with text: How many jars of powdered milk are in this box? ___ jars (accompanying picture depicts a full box in which only some of the jars are visible); Dad’s birthday is on June 28th. He will celebrate his birthday on the following Saturday. That is on ___ (accompanying picture depicts the calendar for the month of June).
The following mathematics domains are covered: 1) numbers, number relations, and operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division); 2) proportions and fractions; and 3) measurement and geometry. The reliability coefficients for the different versions of the test (middle-end) ranged from .91 to .97 (Janssen et al., 2010), in the present study α = .86. The test scores at the end of grade 4 were used as the outcome measure (T2); the test scores at the start of grade 4 were used as a baseline measure (T1). It must be noted that the baseline measure was actually included as part of standardized testing at the end of grade 3, but for clarity and consistency we are using this as the level at the start of grade 4. The mathematical problem-solving measure was a longitudinal measure (T1 and T2), whereas all other measures were collected before T2.
Measurement instruments
Mediator measure (start grade 4)
Arithmetic fluency. The Speeded Arithmetic Test (Tempo Test Automatiseren, TTA; De Vos, 2010) is a standardized paper-and-pencil