An investigative study of the effects of personalized system of instruction (PSI) on high school mathematics students

This study was conducted in a Knoxville (Tennessee) public high school in the spring of 1980. It compared one PSI taught class of elementary algebra I-part II with two conventionally taught classes of elementary algebra I-part II on a unit in fractions developed by the researcher.

There were 34 students in the lecture classes and 16 students in the PSI class. Students in the PSI taught class were given a course description with information concerning course requirements, grading, and teacher-expectations of the students. The class was organized as set forth by Keller and Sherman in The Keller Plan Handbook. The lecture-recitation classes were treated in the usual way, i.e., taught by lecture, given homework, and then tested.

At the conclusion of the study, all students took a common posttest covering fractions and completed a modified Akin attitude instrument. The findings of the study, as determined by a t-test for independent samples, were:

1. No significant differences were found among the mean posttest scores of the experimental and lecture-recitation classes at the .05 significance level. Therefore, the null hypothesis of no significant differences in the mean achievement scores of the two groups was not rejected.

2. At the .05 significance level, the attitude instrument produced no significant differences. Therefore, the null hypothesis of no significant differences in the mean attitude scores of the two groups was not rejected.