Abstract
A small-group, web-interactive approach to teaching precalculus concepts was investigated. Following an online pretest, 3 participants were given a brief (15 min) presentation on the details of reciprocal math relations and how they operate on the coordinate axes. During baseline, participants were tested regarding their ability to construct formulas for a diversified series of graphs. This was followed by online, construction-based, small-group training procedures focusing on the construction of mathematical functions and a test of novel relations. Participants then received group training in accordance with frames of coordination (same as) and frames of opposition (reciprocal of) formula- to-graph relations. Online assessment indicated that participants showed substantial improvement over baseline and pretest performances. This was true even though, during the tests of novel relations, graphs were displayed with scattered data points instead of solid lines on the coordinate axes. Although one participant was unable to complete the second half of the experiment, we were able to train this small group employing approximately the same number of exposures needed for individual training in previous research.
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Portions of this paper were presented at the 34th Annual Conference of the Association for Behavior Analysis.
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McGinty, J., Ninness, C., McCuller, G. et al. Training and Deriving Precalculus Relations: A Small-Group, Web-Interactive Approach. Psychol Rec 62, 225–242 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395799
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395799