Math play's effects on mathematics attitude and awareness: A Rasch Analysis

Where children see mathematics in the world and the attitudes children hold toward mathematics are not thoroughly understood. The Mathematics Attitude Assessment (MAA) and the Difficulty Associating Words with Mathematics (DAWM) are instruments developed to examine mathematics attitude and the propensity of primary students to indicate words as mathematics related. These instruments were used to measure any changes among pre-intervention, post-intervention and one-month post-intervention of this quasi-experimental design. The intervention was Math Play: a collection of mathematics-based games and activities with emphasis on exploration and problem solving. Rasch analysis and traditional analysis techniques were used to examine the participants, the assessment instruments and any effects. The difference scores were analysed using a 2X2 Two-Factor ANOVA. A statistically significant difference was found for pre-treatment to one-month post-treatment for the DAWM with each participant as an experimental unit. No statistically significant differences were found for the MAA results.