Hypothesis

If students see students similar to themselves represented in their math assignments, they will see an increase in their sense of belonging within their math class and the broader school and mathematics community.

Student population

The experiment focused on seventh graders in three diverse school districts.

Intervention

We identified 10 middle school workspaces that present word problems that use named characters. Names of characters are normally taken from a nationally representative list. For this study, we identified (first) names that were common in each participating school district but which were relatively uncommon nationally. We then modified word problems in these 10 workspaces to use the locally-common names. For example, in the problem shown above, students using MATHia normally see the name "Helen." Students in the treatment conditions in participating districts saw either Deisy, Elianna or Zander, depending on the district.

Design

Prior to starting the workspaces and at the end of the study, students were asked to complete the Mathematics Classroom Connectedness Scale (MCCS).

The study used three conditions. In the control condition, students saw the standard names in all word problems in all 10 workspaces. In the localized condition, students saw names within the 10 workspaces that were selected from common names in their school district. In the localized salient condition, students saw the localized names and also saw a banner pointing out that the names used in the word problems were taken from students in their school district.

In order to maximize the impact of the intervention, condition assignments were consistent for students across all target workspaces.

Outcome measures

The study measured changes in the MCCS survey responses. Since MATHia is mastery-based, we also used internal measures in MATHia to determine whether the intervention led to increased success in mathematics. These measures include the time to complete the target workspaces, number of problems needed to complete the workspaces and number of hints requested and errors made while completing target workspaces.