Personalization of mathematics word problems in Taiwan

This study investigated the effects of group personalization of instruction on the mathematics achievement and attitudes of 72 fifth-grade Taiwanese students. Personalization was accomplished by incorporating personal information and preferences provided by students into their mathematics word problems. Students were blocked by ability level, then randomly assigned to a personalized or nonpersonalized version of an instructional program on mathematics word problems. Students made significant pretest-to-posttest gains across treatments and scored significantly higher on personalized than on nonpersonalized posttest problems. However, the personalized treatment did not produce a significant achievement difference over the nonpersonalized one. Significant two-way interactions reflected greater pretest-to-posttest improvement for lower-ability than for higher-ability students and a greater difference between scores on personalized over nonpersonalized posttest problems for lower-ability students. The posttest scores of high-ability students were limited by a ceiling effect. Student attitudes were significantly more favorable toward the personalized instruction.