Menu Close

The Power of Two: Integrating Conceptual and Procedural Methods in Solving Real-Life Algebraic Expression

The need for mathematical knowledge to be used in practical situations is increasingly being seen, and hence the need for both conceptual and procedural fluency in algebra is emphasized. Unfortunately, many students lack an interrelation between these two aspects of mathematical knowledge, making it difficult for them to use mathematics in practical situations. Therefore, the study sought to establish whether the IIA would help improve the students’ understanding of conceptual and procedural skills to solve practical mathematical situations. A non-equivalent pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was utilized using 37 students from two different schools in the Diffun I District. The statistical analyses conducted were frequency and percentage, mean, standard deviation, paired samples t-test, independent samples t-test, Levene’s test, Shapiro-Wilk test, and Cohen’s d. The pre-test showed the equivalence of the experimental and control groups. While in the post-test, the experimental group performed better than the control group with a mean percent score of 79.42 against 73.63 and a mean gain of 11.42 against 8.53, respectively. Considering that Cohen’s d value is 0.447, the findings proved that the effect size is moderate, thus supporting the idea that there is an effective enhancement of students’ problem-solving abilities by integrating conceptual and procedural knowledge. The study concluded that the use of the Integrated Instructional Approach is effective in improving learning outcomes in the field of algebra since it incorporates discussions based on concepts, procedural activities, and problem-solving exercises. It is advised for teachers to implement this instructional strategy to improve their students’ problem-solving skills in algebra.