Effect of Calculator Use on Algebra Progress Monitoring Slopes Among Students in Secondary Foundational Algebra Classes

Calculator usage has become commonplace in the secondary mathematics classroom, yet most progress monitoring studies using curriculum-based measurement tools have been completed without using calculators. The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether using a calculator made a statistically significant difference in the depiction of students’ growth rates among student participants who were low performing in mathematics and were enrolled in a foundational algebra course. This study spanned the Fall semester and included 46 ninth-grade participants from five classes who were all considered at risk, including students diagnosed with a disability and/or as multilingual learners. To validate the algebra progress measures taken with a calculator, assessments were administered with and without a calculator each week and were correlated with two external assessments: the district algebra screener and the Measures of Academic Progress assessment, both given before and following the 10-week interval of weekly progress monitoring. The findings of the study showed that for all students, scores on the progress monitoring probes when a calculator was used were consistently higher than those scores without a calculator. The mean slope with a calculator at the end of 10 weeks was 0.33, and the mean slope without a calculator was 0.42. Additionally, a social validity questionnaire indicated that 85% of the students would select to use a calculator with the measures if given the choice.