Critical evaluation of Fuchs, Fuchs & Karns (2001) article Essay

Critical evaluation of Fuchs, Fuchs & Karns (2001) article - Essay Example (Pagani et. al. 2006) Considering all these, there is growing importance placed on understanding those stages of life. This report aims at critically analyzing one of such researches done on children’s mathematical development. In this process, views of external critics are taken into account and the choice of the method applied is critically analyzed along with its results and outcomes. The other aspect that is discussed in this report is the benefits that are obtained in implementing this method and the probable ethical issues that might arise if this is to be implemented in practical scenarios. Research problem The background for this research is based on the results obtained from the analysis done by Griffin and Case in 1997. (Griffin & Case, 1997) According to them, children, when they attain the age of six, should have developed a ‘mental number line representation’ by combining the two basic concepts of mathematics – counting and comparison. (Fuchs e t. al. 2001) Once they achieve such a line, the required ground work gets established and with that as base, they can build on it to solve further problems in mathematics and understand the concepts better. But, many of the children who come from poor financial backgrounds and from utter poverty fail to achieve this line of understanding and hence wound up facing long term mathematical failures. The research under discussion aims to improve the students from high poverty background to achieve this mental line representation before they move on to higher studies. The research is actually an extrapolation of the research works done by the authors, Griffin and Case in the year, 1997. (Griffin & Case, 1997) Based on the three research exercises that they had done on a select number of students grouped under experimental and control group categories, they received high percentage of success, with many of the guided students who underwent this study were able to cope up with the middle le vel students, thus allowing them to compete equally and subsequently improve their mathematical knowledge. (Fuchs et. al. 2002) Research methodology Peer Assisted Learning Strategies of (PALS) is the method followed here to achieve the goal of this research. It is a method where the teachers deploy a program that allows them to identify and assist students who lack in specific set of areas. (Ashwin, 2003) Did their hypothesis/research problem correspond to the adopted collection and analysis of the research design? The aim of their research is to improve the understanding level of the students in mathematics. The purpose of the research problem is to extrapolate the previous results in three ways. 1. To expand the research area. That is, to involve more numbers of students, whose levels of understanding varies drastically. This is to present the teachers with details about how to proceed with the treatment in diversified classrooms. This dimension of the problem was addressed during the design phase of the research by identifying and including students with different performance levels and from both disabled and nondisabled sections. 2. To evaluate the capacity of the teachers. The need for this result was to identify the response from students, to explore the fidelity of their teaching method and to generate an informative feedback about the treatment. This dimension of the problem was addressed by choosing teachers who were from different demographical