Establishing Effective Remedial Instruction Grouping Using the Rough Set Theory and Grey Structural Modeling

In the field of education, the assessment of a student’s learning performance is based on his final course scores. Few people care about what is behind the numbers. Most of the time, the final scores represent the end of the course because students have already passed the subject. Low-level students especially, still have a lot of misconceptions, but they do not know how to make up for their poor grasp of the subject in preparation for future study. Instead of just giving students their scores, teachers are encouraged to provide remedial instruction to students for their future learning. This study aims to establish an effective method using rough set theory and grey structural modeling to determine which attributes affect students’ final scores and to cluster students accordingly. A rough set algorithm generates a set of attributes for an assessment list. Grey structural modeling (GSM) is then used to cluster students who have the same weaknesses in English. GSM changes from one dimension to two dimensions, and calculates the relative distance, so that cluster analysis can be performed. Targeted remedial instruction can then be given to each similar ability student grouping. The results revealed that through integrating the two theories, teachers could more effectively sort students into groups. Students benefit by coming to understand their weaknesses in English instead of just receiving a single score at the end of the semester, and they can learn with their peers as well. Teachers can adjust their teaching strategies and syllabus design based on the analytical results to target the students’ needs.

Reading and Writing Instruction for Academically At-Risk Deaf and Hard of Hearing First-Year College Students

Objective/Research Question: Students with disabilities, including deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students, are enrolling in college at rates higher than in the past with most of them pursuing an associate’s degree. For DHH students, their reading ability is a predictor of their academic achievement in college. However, more than half of DHH students enroll in remedial reading and writing college courses indicating they are not reading and writing at a college level and putting them at-risk for non-completion. In addition, remedial reading and writing courses often do not count for credit toward graduation and may hinder rather than support student progress. One way to mitigate the need for remedial coursework during college is to provide the remedial instruction in a low-stakes manner through summer bridge to college programs. The purpose of the present study was to measure the effects of remedial reading and writing instruction provided through a summer bridge program on first-year, academically at-risk DHH college students’ ( N = 20) reading and writing abilities. Methods: Using a pretest/posttest design, we implemented remedial reading and writing instruction for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week for 5 weeks. Results: Upon the completion of instruction, the student participants’ reading and writing skills improved. Conclusions/Contributions: Our findings may encourage researchers to attempt remedial instruction through summer bridge programs with other populations with disabilities or English language learners.

GAME-BASED MOBILE APPLICATION (P-KSSMPKPS) REMEDIAL INSTRUCTION IN FRACTION LEARNING: BEST PRACTICES TO TEACHING AND LEARNING PERFORMANCE ON STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES

This research was carried out to investigate the efficacy of the creative game-based mobile learning application (P-KSSMPKPS) in addressing students with learning disabilities in the discipline topic. A total of 152 students from ten different schools in the South Kinta district in Perak, Malaysia, divided into experimental group and control groups were used: (1) traditional teaching methods, (2) as the best instructional case we could implement, teaching with a mobile game-based learning application (P-KSSMPKPS) who had participated in this survey. The study was conducted based on the mixed experimental design in which each respondent was given pre-test, treatment, and post-test. The mobile application developed is a treatment method used due to its educational advantages that impact long-term memory. The development of this mobile application incorporates multimedia and visual elements that enable the attention of disadvantaged students to explore and follow the learning process through to the end of learning. This mobile application has been implemented and tested for its effectiveness on student achievement after learning for a fraction of mobile apps developed. As a result of this mobile application, it was found that student achievement improved and resolved further errors in the students. These results open a new performance enhancement using creative fraction (P-KSSMPKPS) game-based learning as remedial instruction to students with learning problems.

Applying Student-Problem Chart, Grey Student-Problem Chart and Grey Structure Modeling to Analyze the Effect of an Elementary School English Remedial Instruction

Student-Problem (S-P) chart, Grey Student-Problem (GSP) chart and Grey Structural Modeling (GSM) are graphical analysis tools to represent the relationship between students and test items which can be applied to diagnose, analyze, and evaluate students’ learning situation and achievement. This study has adopted a combination of these graphic analyses to assess the effect of an elementary school remedial instruction. A group of 20 fourth graders in Taipei city participated in this study, and an English test, consisting of four sections with 25 question items in total, which is based on the textbook in the fourth grade, was conducted before and after the remedial instruction. The results indicated that S-P chart, the distribution diagram of student and item types, GSP and GSM graphs effectively diagnosed students’ learning condition and items’ difficulty, and demonstrated the effect of students’ achievement and the change of test items’ types. It is strongly recommended that teachers utilize these methods in assessing the progress of their teaching and their students’ learning.