The Impact of Verbal Discourse on General and Special Education Students in the Ninth Grade Algebra I Classroom

The purpose of this research study was to determine if there was a difference in using verbal discourse methods in the Foundations of Algebra/Algebra I for the general and special education population. This study was done in the collaborative classroom where the results of general education and special education students were compared. The researcher also compared the results of the verbal discourse formative assessments to determine which type of verbal discourse made the greatest impact of conceptual understanding of mathematical operations using a quantitative study. The data was collected for two formative assessments and compared using the multiple linear regression analysis. When analyzing the results of the data collected, the results showed that the use of verbal discourse method of explaining mathematical thinking in the classroom had a statistically significant difference in the performance of conceptual understanding on mathematical operations. This study also demonstrated a similar pattern of conceptual understanding of mathematical operations between the general and special education student populations. Key words: verbal discourse, special education, general education, quantitative