The impact of teaching inference skills in Grade 10 Financial Mathematics during a ten-week intervention programme

Abstract

This study is rooted in the context of South Africa's educational landscape, where challenges related to reading comprehension and mathematical proficiency are prevalent. South Africa's participation in various educational assessments, such as the Western Cape Education Department Systemic Tests, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), consistently revealed poor results in mathematics and languages, indicating a struggle with reading for meaning, making inferences, and basic arithmetic. The national curriculum, as outlined in the Department of Basic Education's Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement, underscores the importance of 'inference' as a sub-skill in comprehension and language awareness across all subjects. This study focuses on five Grade 10 learners, a crucial phase in South Africa's Further Education and Training band. Financial mathematics, a challenging subject within Mathematics, is integral to the curriculum, and learners often encounter difficulties with it. This research aimed to enhance five Grade 10 learners' knowledge of financial mathematics by teaching inference-comprehension skills within word problems. It also explored the improvement of learners' higher-order thinking skills and reading motivation in the context of financial mathematics. A ten-week Intervention Programme (IP) was conducted. The first and last weeks were used to complete pre- and post-tests on Grade 10 learners' financial mathematics problem-solving abilities. The results of the pre-tests determined the content to be included in the eight-week teaching phase of the IP. During the IP, four comprehension strategies were taught to develop two of the PIRLS comprehension skills: focus on retrieving explicitly stated information, and making straightforward inferences. Learners demonstrated progress in understanding and calculating financial mathematics content, transitioning from the Bloom’s taxonomy lower-order to higher-order thinking skills. The following three research questions guided this study: What were the five learners’ understandings of inference skills in a Grade 10 Financial Mathematics class before the IP? How did the five Grade 10 learners’ cognitive abilities evolve during the IP? And what were the learners’ understandings of inference skills after the ten-week IP? The conceptual framework of this study integrated three theories: Vygotsky's (1978) theory of social constructivism, the cognitive domain of Bloom’s taxonomy (2001), and Wenger's (2005) social theory of learning, to provide a comprehensive understanding of the research questions. A qualitative approach was employed, utilising a case study design, within an interpretivist paradigm. Data gathered through semi-structured interviews, participant observations, pre- and post-test results from the IP, and document analysis were inductively and deductively analysed. Evidence from the study showed that the IP had a positive impact on the learners' understanding of inference skills, their ability to think more about their Mathematics problem sums more critically, and their performance in Grade 10 Financial Mathematics improved. The recommendations for teaching comprehension skills, especially inference skills, in Grade 10 Financial Mathematics include integrating effective comprehension strategies, emphasising contextual application in real-world scenarios, implementing regular assessments, fostering collaborative learning environments, and providing professional development for teachers. Additionally, recommendations for policy development suggest explicitly including inference comprehension skills in the official curriculum standards, allocating resources for relevant teaching materials, and integrating training into teacher education programmes. Further research is recommended to assess the impact of inference skill interventions on learners' performance and explore alternative teaching strategies for enhancing comprehension skills in financial mathematics.