A Study of the Performance of Deaf/Hard of Hearing Students in High School Mathematics on Conceptual Understanding, Procedural Fluency, and Mathematical Reasoning Tasks

Abstract

Mathematics tends to be a subject where many students struggle and that struggle becomes especially prevalent as students make the transition from concrete mathematics to abstract mathematics, or from elementary or middle school to high school mathematics. With students that are deaf, the learning of mathematics becomes more complicated. Many barriers to learning present themselves as deaf students work their way through school and as they go through school, the performance gap between hearing and deaf students begins to grow. This thesis discusses the language barrier as one possible contributor as well as other factors like teacher preparedness and pedagogical practices. This study focuses on the comparison of students that are deaf and their hearing equivalents and how they display conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and mathematical reasoning on an assessment with New York State Regents Algebra I questions.