Enhancing mathematics performance in primary education: The impact of personalized learning on fractions and decimal numbers

Abstract The use of technology and tools that enable the automation of personalized learning systems has become increasingly relevant and has attracted substantial attention in the field of research. Under this premise, the present study examines the potential of using personalized instructional sequences with activities in the Moodle learning management system on the learning of fractions and decimal numbers among 5th-grade primary school students. A total of 73 students participated in the study. This quantitative-experimental study was implemented over six sessions, in which the experimental and control groups completed personalized and non-personalized sequences of activities, respectively, on their assigned laptops at school. The results revealed significant improvement in both groups in the areas of fractions and decimal numbers. Additionally, when comparing the types of instruction, noteworthy differences were observed in favor of personalized instruction for fractions, but not for decimal numbers.