Effectiveness of Non-Traditional Activities to Develop the Mathematical Higher Order Thinking Skills of Grade-Seven Students

Abstract

Developing critical thinking and problem solving skills of students are some of the important goals that every school must set. This study determined the effectiveness of non-traditional activities to develop mathematical higher order thinking skills of grade seven students. This study employed the non-equivalent control group experimental design, which involved 83 grade 7 students of Sawata National High School. There were two sections used in this study, the control group which the researcher used the traditional lecture activity and the experimental group, were the students exposed to non-traditional activities: manipulative activities, computer-aided activities, and reflective writing activities. The specific subject matters covered were the second-grading mathematics seven topics which are measurement and measuring of length, measuring mass/weight and volume, and measuring angles, time and temperature. The data were gathered using the multiple choice teacher's made test in the pre-test and post-test. Prior to the study, the higher order thinking skills of the two groups had no significant difference. The result changed after the treatment was given. The study concludes that the used of non-traditional activities were effective over the traditional activity in the development of the higher order thinking skills of the students. The study recommends integration of non-traditional activities to develop the higher order thinking skills of the students.