The effects of metacognition and email conversation on learning graphing

The purpose of this study was twofold: First, to investigate the
effects of metacognition and email interaction between teacher-student on
learning to interpret and construct graphs. Second, to describe the email
interaction on three levels of interaction: tutorial, metacognitive and life.
Participants were 50 ninth-grade students (boys and girls) who studied
graphs in two classes. One class (n = 25) was exposed to EXCEL software
embedded within email interaction (EMAIL) and the other class (n = 25)
was exposed to EXCEL software embedded within email interaction and
metacognitive instruction (EMAIL + META). Results indicated that the
EMAIL + META students significantly outperformed the EMAIL
students on graph interpretation and graph construction. In particular the
effects were observed on students' ability to explain mathematical
reasoning and on reducing misconceptions regarding graphs. Furthermore,
qualitative analysis of the EMAIL messages indicated that the EMAIL +
META students frequently used different levels of interaction in their
email interactions than the EMAIL students