Effectiveness of the Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA) Approach in Enhancing Addition and Subtraction Skills among Early Grade Learners in Ubungo Municipality, Tanzania
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33687/ijef.003.02.00174Keywords:
Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA) Approach, Addition and Subtraction, Skills and Early Grade LearnersAbstract
The study assessed the effectiveness of the concrete-representational abstract (CRA) strategy in improving addition and subtraction skills of early grade learners in Ubungo Municipality, Tanzania. The study was guided by the constructivist learning theory and used a mixed method sequential explanatory design. The population of the study was 796 respondents from which a sample of 126 respondents was selected. These respondents were divided into 100 Standard Two pupils, 22 teachers, and four head teachers. Questionnaires, interviews, observations, and documentary reviews were used to collect data. The statistical tools used to analyze the quantitative data were frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviation using SPSS Version 28 while the qualitative data were thematically analyzed. The study revealed that most teachers agreed that CRA was effective in promoting addition and subtraction skills of pupils in Standard Two. Specifically, 90.9% of teachers agreed or strongly agreed that the use of concrete materials in CRA helped pupils to acquire addition and subtraction concepts while 86.4% reported that the use of visual representations improved pupils’ performance on addition and subtraction. Similarly, 86.4% of the teachers agreed or strongly agreed that the transition from concrete materials to abstract symbols helped pupils to improve their understanding of mathematics while 86.4% of teachers agreed or strongly agreed that the CRA approach improved pupils’ accuracy in addition and subtraction. Additionally, 81.8% of teachers agreed or strongly agreed that regular use of CRA approach increased pupils’ confidence and participation levels during mathematics lessons. The interview results also revealed that the pupils benefited from using locally available materials and visual representations, teacher assistance and transition to abstract mathematical symbols. However, the study also revealed that there is a shortage of effective early grade numeracy strategies. This was evident by the fact that 73% of the teachers interviewed had not received recent training on early grade mathematics learning. The study concluded that the CRA is an effective learner-centered strategy for improving addition and subtraction skills of Standard Two learners if it is regularly used together with teachers’ assistance and instructional materials. The study recommended frequently conducting teacher training on CRA in improving early-grade numeracy, providing and encouraging frequent use of locally available instructional materials and reinforcing learning mathematics by using the CRA instructional materials at school level.
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