Geogebra and Grade 9 learners’ achievement in linear functions

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.