Effects of Schematic Chunking Intervention on Enhancing Geometry Performance in High School Students With Geometry Learning Difficulties

Geometry education is an important aspect of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, but it is often overlooked in K–12 education in the United States. Chunking strategy reduces the cognitive load demanded in the processing of information, and it has been applied as a testing accommodation for high school students with math difficulties (MD) in prior research. This study extended prior research from test accommodation to examining the effect of schematic chunking as an intervention on the geometry performance of high schoolers with MD. A multiple probe design across participants was used. Three tenth graders with difficulties in learning geometry participated in this study. We revealed that the schematic chunking strategy improved all three students’ performance in solving high school geometry problems, with varying improvement on two generalization measures. Qualitative analysis suggested that all three participants adopted the schematic chunking strategy; however, some barriers interfered with their successful use of the chunking strategy. Individual differences in responses to the schematic chunking intervention suggested that the effectiveness of the chunking strategy depends on the assumption that students have the prerequisite expertise to recognize meaningful schematic chunks and can retrieve related theorems from long-term memory. We recommended that schematic chunking strategy should be integrated with, rather than replacing, geometry content instruction.