Motivatie als onderliggend proces aangaande het verband tussen het personaliseren van rekenkundige woordproblemen en rekenprestaties bij basisschoolkinderen

Abstract

This study investigated whether the use of personalized mathematical word problems could increase the achievement of Dutch primary school students. Besides, it examined if an increase of motivation could explain this positive effect. A total of 124 sixth-graders from four different primary schools participated in the study. In the pre-measurement participants performed two working memory tasks: the Lion-game and the Monkey-game. They also completed an interest questionnaire. In the post-measurement participants were divided into two groups: the personalized condition and the control condition. Both groups performed a test with ten mathematical word problems and questions about their motivation on every problem. Participants in the personalized condition received personalized mathematical word problems, and participants in the control condition received unpersonalized mathematical word problems. The results were compared after the measurements with a multiple regression analysis. This analysis revealed that children in the personalized condition did not perform better on the mathematical word problems than the children in the control condition. Furthermore, it revealed that the increase of motivation could not explain the effect from personalization on the mathematical achievement.