Investigation of the effect of computer-supported instruction on students' achievement on optimization problems

This study aimed to investigate the relative effectiveness of a computer-supported teaching sequence in solving optimization problems in calculus compared to a traditional teaching approach. The participants in the study were 46 first-year prospective mathematics teachers studying in two different classes of a four-year elementary mathematics teacher preparation program. The two classes were randomly assigned as experimental and control groups. The teaching of the content in the control group took place as direct lecturing, whereas in the experimental group, an instructional intervention was carried out. To compare the performance of the two groups in solving optimization problems, the students were asked to solve a problem, and a scoring rubric was used to quantify their success. In order to determine whether there was a difference between the groups in terms of student performance, a Mann-Whitney U test was performed on the scores. The results indicated a significant difference in favour of the experimental group. It was concluded that the teaching sequence adopted in the experimental group better served the students in interpreting the optimization function in terms of the quantities given in the problem scenario.