Date of Award:

8-2019

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Department name when degree awarded

Teacher Education and Leadership

Committee Chair(s)

Patricia Moyer-Packenham

Committee

Patricia Moyer-Packenham

Committee

Max L. Longhurst

Committee

Beth L. MacDonald

Committee

Kady Schneiter

Committee

Susan A. Turner

Abstract

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to investigate the relationship between teachers’ conceptions of mathematics and their use of intelligent tutoring systems for mathematics instruction. Intelligent tutoring systems are adaptive computer programs which administer mathematics instruction to students based on their cognitive state. A conception is a mixture of beliefs and knowledge. The participants in this study were 93 junior high school mathematics teachers from three school districts in the Midwest. Data were gathered using a two-part online survey. The first part of the survey contained questions about their use of intelligent tutoring systems, graphing calculators, Desmos and dynamic geometry software. The second part of the survey contained Likert questions from the teachers’ version of the Conceptions of Mathematics Inventory. Desmos is a website providing interactive classroom activities and a user-friendly graphing calculator. Dynamic geometry software is a class of interactive geometry programs.

The quantitative analysis revealed no statistically significant interactions between teachers’ conception scores and intelligent tutoring system use, or between teachers’ conception scores and how intelligent tutoring systems were used. There were statistically significant interactions between teachers’ conception scores and their use of graphing calculators, Desmos, and dynamic geometry software. The qualitative analysis revealed that teachers used intelligent tutoring systems for differentiation. Teachers used graphing calculators, Desmos, and dynamic geometry software for visual, computational, and exploratory purposes. Teachers exclusively using intelligent tutoring systems to incorporate technology should also incorporate technology which promotes student exploration.

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b609e4b12544cc6b8109d8ce0da9baaf

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