THE USE OF LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE TECHNOLOGIES IN ARITHMETIC CALCULATION TASKS IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

Abstract

The importance of stimulating mathematical activities in students using technological and manipulative tools is linked to an improvement in their educational performance. The introduction of LKT apps in the area of mathematics has facilitated the use of different representation registers and transformations, which facilitate the necessary connection for reasoning during the learning process. The aim of this research is to analyse whether performance in arithmetic calculation tasks improves the performance of students who have used educational applications specifically designed for arithmetic learning. For this purpose, an experimental intervention was carried out with a sample of 575 students, of which 270 were assigned the experimental condition and 305 were assigned the control condition. All of them were assessed before and after the intervention with the Evamat Test (GARCÍA et al., 2013). The programme was based on the use of apps in school within the field of arithmetic calculation during 28 weeks. As a result, a statistically significant effect was obtained on the numeracy skills of students in the experimental condition. These results suggest that teachers can consider the integration of tablet software as an effective tool in daily practice, when it involves contextualised and integrated curriculum development and that the educational applications ensure specific design requirements.