Comparing the Effectiveness of Four Interventions for the Support of Students with Learning Disabilities in Acquiring Arithmetic Combinations of Multiplication and Division

Abstract

The present study examined the effectiveness of four instructional interventions for teaching arithmetic combinations of multiplication and division to students with arithmetic combinations of multiplication and division to students with Learning Disabilities. The basic intervention, through which the control group was instructed, was based on six fundamental principles of effective instruction. A combination of this basic intervention and an alternative grouping and presentation form of arithmetic combinations constituted the intervention for the 1st experimental group. The addition of fact finding strategies to the intervention for the 1st experimental group yielded the intervention used for the 2nd experimental group. Finally, the intervention through which the 3rd experimental group was supported consisted of the 2nd experimental group’s intervention plus components of number sense. The results showed that the majority of students of all groups presented significant improvement in learning the arithmetic combinations, while no significant differences were found among groups. However, in some groups differentiation was observed regarding the final performance in multiplication or division arithmetic combinations, probably due to the nature of the interaction of certain instructional techniques and the specific characteristics of the two arithmetic operations.