Book Description

The concentration in K-12 education on higher-order thinking has diminished the importance of math fact automaticity, which is the ability to deliver a correct answer immediately from long-term memory without impeding the working memory. This quantitative study investigated the influence of automaticity of high school students on their Missouri standardized high school math assessment, controlling for student socioeconomic status and gender. The research design utilized two timed math fact assessments to evaluate the relationship between students' automaticity and their performance in math fact assessments. Timed tests with a rate of 80 or more correct digits with less than two mistakes within one-minute was used to measure student automaticity. The two timed math fact assessments included both an addition assessment and a multiplication assessment. Previous studies have identified Socioeconomic Status (SES) and gender as control variables impacting students' performances on mathematics assessments. Linear regression tests were run to determine if student performance on math fact assessments and students' automaticity predicted their Algebra I End-of-Course (EOC) scores. Further, to better understand students' performances on the math facts tests, ANOVA tests were run to analyze the differences of the independent variables including SES, gender, parental education, home environment, and household possessions. The results showed a significant relationship between automaticity of math facts and the Missouri Algebra I EOC. Further, findings revealed that student performances on the math facts assessments were predictors of the Missouri Algebra I EOC. Lastly, significant relationships were found between several control variables and student performance on math facts assessments. From these findings, a need exists for students to attain automaticity of math facts at the elementary level (Allen-Lyall, 2018; Fuchs et al. 2005) and a need exists for school districts to implement instructional practices limiting student use of calculators throughout the middle school years (Nelson, 2016). Both of these practices may lead to greater student automaticity of math facts, and therefore, greater student performances on the Algebra I EOC.