Instructional Games and Manipulatives in Teaching Mathematics: It’s Effect on Students' Learning Retention and Perception

Retention of learning is one of the many problems that encountered by the teachers in the teaching field. The study aimed to determine the effects of using games and manipulative in teaching mathematics to the students’ learning retention scores and perceptions towards the mathematics subject. It was a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental control group design. Two sections were randomly assigned as experimental and control group. A 25-item teacher-made achievement test with reliability coefficients of 0.83 was used and questions on perception about the activities was given. The achievement tests were given to the participants before the treatment, after the treatment, and two weeks after the posttest for retention test. The scores in the posttest and the retention test were used in the study. The data collected were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, and analysis of covariance. Results of the analysis revealed that the retention scores of the students exposed instructional games were as good as those students exposed to manipulative. In addition, all students under the study appreciated the game activities and manipulative that were used. Both groups mentioned that the activities introduced to them helped them to understand the mathematical concepts. Researcher concluded that giving activities through game and using manipulative were both have the same effect to students learning. Furthermore, students have positive perceptions towards the activities and towards the subject.