Responding to Calls for Change in High School Mathematics: Implications for Collegiate Mathematics

Abstract

This article briefly discusses the recent history of mathematics reform in high school, and then reports on research evidence for one of the new NSF-funded curriculum projects, the Core-Plus Mathematics Project (CPMP). Implications for collegiate mathematics are also discussed. A summary of the results of several studies using a range of achievement measures comparing CPMP students to comparable students in more conventional high school mathematics curricula is given on page 114: “Thus, research to date indicates that CPMP students perform particularly well [and better than the comparison students] on measures of conceptual understanding, interpretation of mathematical representations and calculations, and problem solving in applied contexts. Their performance is also relatively strong in content areas like statistics and probability that are emphasized in the curriculum. On measures of algebraic manipulative skills, CPMP students usually, but not always, score as well as students in more conventional curricula.” A study of student performance on a mathematics placement test used at a major university is summarized on page 116: “On the algebra subtest, the means of the [conventional] precalculus students and the CPMP Course 4 students were virtually identical. On the intermediate algebra subtest, the mean of the precalculus group was greater than that of the Course 4 group. The only statistically significant difference in means was on the calculus readiness subtest (t = 4.93, p < 0.01). That difference favored the CPMP students.” Responding to Calls for Change in High School Mathematics: Implications for Collegiate Mathematics Harold L. Schoen and Christian R. Hirsch