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Year 3 Indigenous and non-Indigenous students' acquisition of three digit, whole number numeration
Kelli Stewart 
This study will investigate Year 3 Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in an urban and rural Queensland school as they progress from two- to three-digit whole number. The major foci of the research will be to identify the difficulties experienced by both cohorts in their social milieu as they acquire early numeration concepts, comparing these difficulties for similarities and differences in students' cognitive structures and developing effective strategies to facilitate learning for both cohorts that leads to theory building.
Transcript
Interviewer: I would like to welcome Kelli Stewart. Welcome Kelli.
Kelli Stewart: Hello.
Interviewer: Firstly Kelli, can you please share with us what your research is about?
Kelli Stewart: Yes. This is an ethnographic case study that investigates Year 3 indigenous and non-indigenous students’ cognitive structures of early place value and number concepts as they progress from 2 to 3-digit number. It’s a longitudinal study as it’s conducted over the period of a school year in an urban Brisbane school and a rural school within 3 hours drive from Brisbane. It includes aspects of collaborative action research, as I will be working with educators in the school to identify ways to empower the students for their future in mathematics study and to develop their reasoning in numeracy for active citizenship. The study explores the social milieu of the students and identifies the effect of factors that impact on students numeracy learning. Eight students will be indigenous and eight non-indigenous students will form a focus group for the study and participants will also include school staff, parents, care givers and other community members who are willing to participate. So really it’s about empowerment. Empowerment for students and increasing their life chances and empowering educators who currently struggle with the teaching and learning of numeracy for this educationally disadvantaged group.
Interviewer: And what do you expect to find from this research?
Kelli Stewart: The study aims to find the factors that impede indigenous students learning of number. So a major focus of the study will be to identify the difficulties experienced by both indigenous and non-indigenous students in their acquisition of early number concepts and then make comparisons between any different cognitive structures that are found to exist between focus group members. So comparisons will be made that indicate urban and rural, high and low performing indigenous and non-indigenous students’ structural knowledge in numeracy and their beliefs and values of numeracy learning. The effect of factors that impact on their learning of place value and other early number concepts will also be identified as I will include the community in the research in a situational analysis. So implications will be drawn for indigenous and non-indigenous education in terms of 3-digit numeration.
Interviewer: And what do you expect those implications to be?
Kelli Stewart: Well, although there are numerous government initiatives currently being implemented to improve the numeracy outcomes for indigenous students, these students still lag two to three years behind their non-indigenous peers in numeracy and this is indicated by the results from the Queensland State wide Year 3/5/7 tests and our Year 2 diagnostic net and also the New South Wales basic skills tests. Little research has been conducted that’s theorised why indigenous students continue to perform below the national bench marks in numeracy. So this research will provide rich data that will allow me to develop a theory on how the community as a whole can improve numeracy outcomes for indigenous students, which in turn will affect retention rates in secondary school and lead on to improved life chances and active citizenship for indigenous children.
Interviewer: How are you going to go about doing the research Kelli?
Kelli Stewart: Well the research will include, first of all, a situational analysis, to have a look at the social milieu of the students involved in the testing through a pre test two, that will involve baseline and data and a post test that will probe students learning that’s taken place after intervention and teacher and researcher, teaching and learning episodes. So, in addition to the students’ tests, the study will incorporate a situational analysis, student surveys, observations and anecdotal notes, interviews and a collection of artefacts, such as samples of students work and teacher’s lesson plans.
Interviewer: Thank you very much for your time and sharing your research proposal with us.
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