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Cited by 353

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Effects of Manipulative Materials in Mathematics Instruction

Sowell, Evelyn J.·1989·Journal for Research in Mathematics Education

Abstract

Using meta-analysis, the results of 60 studies were combined to determine the effectiveness of mathematics instruction with manipulative materials. Students ranged in age from kindergarteners to college-age adults and studied a variety of mathematics topics. Results showed that mathematics achievement is increased through the long-term use of concrete instructional materials and that students' attitudes toward mathematics are improved when they have instruction with concrete materials provided by teachers knowledgeable about their use. Instruction with pictures and diagrams did not appear to differ in effectiveness from instruction with symbols.

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Metadata

Authors
Sowell, E. J.
Venue
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education
Published
1989-11
Volume
20
Issue
5
Pages
498
ISSN
0021-8251 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W1995478264
Cited by
353
References
0
FWCI
12.58
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Effects of Manipulative Materials in Mathematics Instruction. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.2307/749423
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Sowell, E. J. (1989). Effects of Manipulative Materials in Mathematics Instruction. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. https://doi.org/10.2307/749423

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.