Abstract:
Learners’ underachievement in mathematics is one major challenge
in South Africa. Reports show that one of the topics that learners struggle
with is functions. Many teachers also struggle to teach the topic effectively. The
foundation of functions in the school mathematics curriculum is in the senior
phase of schooling (Grades 7-9). Functions need to be taught effectively at the
foundation level in order to ensure smooth content progression into the higher
grades. Several studies globally have advocated the integration of graphing software
with the teaching of some topics in mathematics including functions to enhance
students’ learning of the topics. This study investigated the effect of integrating
GeoGebra with the teaching of linear functions on Grade 9 learners’
achievement. The study was guided by the constructivist theory of learning and
followed a pre-test post-test, non-equivalent groups and quasi-experimental design.
The participants were 62 learners from two schools in Limpopo South Africa.
The control group was 29 learners from one school and the experimental
group was 33 learners from the second school. GeoGebra was integrated with the
teaching in the experimental group while the control group was taught using
chalk and talk. Data was collected using an achievement test and analysed using
a t-test at 5% level of significance. The results showed that the experimental
group (M = 51.76; SD 17.95) achieved statistically higher scores than the control
group (M = 20.00, SD 11.16) with a large effect of 0.53. Implications are discussed.
