Evaluating and teaching metric measurement of length and area in a group of teachers' college students

Abstract

This study was concerned with the competence of teachers graduating from the primary course in Jamaican teachers' colleges in metric measurement. Data were collected from a sample of 66 randomly selected Primary third-year students from one urban college within the framework of a pre-test, post-test control group design, with the experimental group receiving treatment consisting of a teaching unit of length and area. Results of the data analysis showed that: 1) the metric test correlated positively with the final college examination for mathematics; there was a strong correlation in the case of the metric test for length; 2) students had a low level of competence in metric measurement; and 3) the competence of students in metric measurement decreased as the task involved got increasingly abstract