Effects of peer-mediated instruction on mathematical problem solving for students with moderate/severe intellectual disability

Abstract

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2006) set a precedent that established even higher expectations for all students, including those with disabilities. More recently, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers developed a common set of state standards for proficiency in English language arts and mathematics known as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS, 2010). The CCSS in mathematics define and detail the content expectations and standards for mathematical practices for grades K-12. Their intent is to provide a rigorous, focused, and structured set of standards to prepare students in the 21^st century to be college and career ready upon exiting the high school system. To meet these increased expectations, this investigation sought to determine the effects of peer-mediated schema based instruction on the number of correct steps of a task analysis to solve the change problem type of mathematical word problems with middle school students with moderate/severe intellectual disabilities (MS/ID). Additionally, this study investigated the effects of peer-mediated schema based instruction on the number of correct mathematical problems solved, the ability of students with MS/ID to discriminate between addition and subtraction in word problems for the change problem type, and if students with MS/ID were able to generalize the learned mathematical skills to an unfamiliar peer. Finally, this study examined the effects of peer-mediated instruction on both tutors’ and tutees’ social attitudes and perceptions of one another before and after the study was completed. The findings of this study demonstrated a functional relation between peer-mediated schema-based instruction (SBI) on the number of correct steps of a task analysis. Results also provided several implications for practice, offers suggestions for future research in this area, and discusses the social and academic benefits of using peer-mediated instruction for students with MS/ID.