An investigation into the effect of motivation on learning computational estimates.

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the effect of motivation on learning computational estimation strategies by showing examples of estimation used as a life skill. The effect of motivation on students' attitude toward estimation and the correlation between mental computational abilities and computational estimation skills were also considered. Two sections of a general education mathematics course at a small university were involved in the study. One class served as the experimental group, receiving a lecture on the usefulness of estimation in daily living before receiving instruction on computational estimation strategies. The other class served as the control group, receiving instruction only on computational estimation strategies.