Enhancing undergraduate mathematics students’ conceptual knowledge of the confidence interval for the population mean

This study illustrates the teaching strategies that undergraduate mathematics lecturers might employ to improve their students’ conceptual knowledge of the confidence interval for the population mean. The study employed an action research method. It allowed the researcher to deepen his knowledge of the subject matter by planning, acting, evaluating, refining, and learning from this experience (Koshy, 2010). The participants consisted of sixty (60) level 200 mathematics students, who were randomly selected from a cohort of mathematics students from a mid-sized university in Ghana. The students completed the tasks assigned to them in their various groups by working collaboratively together, with their lecturer helping the process. They determined the particular theorem to apply in any given situation and applied the confidence interval formula to calculate the confidence intervals. The results indicated that collaborative learning, combined with effective instructional methods, improves students’ conceptual knowledge of the confidence interval. An implication of this study is that students’ prior experiences act as a catalyst to enhance their conceptual knowledge. Thus, students who have a conceptual grasp of sampling techniques can conceptualise confidence intervals with ease. The study concludes that students should thoroughly understand the definitions and theorems relating to a statistical concept before they examine concrete examples relating to confidence intervals.

KEYWORDS: Conceptual knowledge, confidence interval, action research method, the population mean, instructional methods.