Dissertation Summary and Critique
by Doug McBroom
The Relationship Between Timed Drill
Practice and the Increase of Automaticity of
Basic Multiplication Fact for Regular
Education Sixth Graders by Nelly Knowles
General Information
• Knowles study was about automaticity which is the
automatic recall of facts once learned (math, science,
history, etc.)
• Framework came from the use of Piaget’s cognitive
development theory
• The mental model used is from Baddely’s working
memory model
• Quasi-experimental quantitative study
Research Questions
• Do written, timed practice drills increase automaticity in
basic multiplication facts for sixth-grade math students?
and
• Does frequency of written, times practice drills
significantly change the automaticity rate in basic
multiplication facts for sixth-grade math students?
Demographics
• Knowles conducted this study in a middle school outside
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of Atlanta, GA.
There were 227 students chosen from the school in
regular math classes.
No information about the teachers was given.
No breakdown of students by gender, ethnicity, etc.
School had a 96% attendance rate
Of the sixth grade class, 92.4% met or exceeded the
standards of the 5th grade math test.
General Summary of the Study Purpose
• Knowles framework uses Piaget’s concrete operational
stage for middle school students.
• Baddeley’s working memory model states that people
have processing resources that are limited.
• Knowles uses these two idea to propose that since
students have the ability to remember automatically, it will
“free up” the limited capacity of students to work on the
topic at hand rather than computational mathematics.
Hypotheses
• H0 – Use of written, times practice drills will not be significantly
associated to a change in the automaticity rate in basic
multiplication facts for six-grade math students
• H1 - Use of written, times practice drills will be significantly
associated to a change in the automaticity rate in basic
multiplication facts for six-grade math students
• H0 – Frequency of use of written, timed practice drills will not be
significantly associated to a change in automaticity rate in basic
multiplication facts for sixth-grade math students
• H1 - Frequency of use of written, timed practice drills will be
significantly associated to a change in automaticity rate in basic
multiplication facts for sixth-grade math students
What happened in the Study?
• Students were divided into three groups and three
subgroups (1 of each group for each teacher)
• Students were given two pretests and one posttest.
• For eight weeks, students were given 1) daily written
timed tests, 2) weekly written timed tests, or 3) no written
timed tests. Tests were three minutes in duration.
• Analysis was done of the data collected
Findings
• Found no significant difference in pretest scores
• Found that the daily treatment group had a higher gain
score than the weekly treatment and the no treatment
groups
• The weekly treatment group had a higher gain score than
the no treatment group
Limitations and Future Recommendations
Limitations
• Study was not random
• Teachers were not standardized for their procedures
• Students enrolling or withdrawing may impact the study
Recommendations
• Teachers can use this in classes without disruption since
it is very fast
• Future research could be do more demographic
breakdowns
• Longitudinal studies would be beneficial
Literature Review
• Discussed how she approached the search for articles,
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studies, and books.
Discussed difficulty in finding articles that dealt with
automaticity that did not deal with learning disabled
students.
Difficulty finding current research on the topic of
automaticity, thus many sources are over five years.
Explored several methods and strategies that could be
used to improve automaticity
Researched Baddeley’s working memory model in
conjunction with Piaget’s cognitive development theory
Literature Review Comments
• Why not use drill or rote memorization?
• Appeared to look at several different ideas, theories,
strategies before settling in on the one she used.
• Used a great deal of articles involving special education
students. (15 / 81)
• She researched experimental and quasi-experimental
studies and decided which one suited her situation better.
• No demographic profile to speak of.
Reflections
• Starting to learn what to look for.
• More comfortable now in how to search, where to search,
and the purpose of the search.
• Forced me to rethink how I developed my hypothesis.
• Frustrated putting a dissertation into Reader’s Digest
Condensed Version. Always feel I am missing something.
• Effective summary is essential. Good literature review is
paramount.
Questions and Comments