Primary school students' perceptions of using comics as a mode of instruction in the mathematics classroom

ABSTRACT

A research project on using comics for teaching mathematics was initiated in one Singapore primary school. One class of Grade 5 (students of age 11–12) students was exposed to comics for mathematics instruction. This paper reports a case study of seven students’ perception of the features of the comics instructional package and how these features impacted their learning of mathematics. The students’ responses in an interview with the researchers were analysed using Thematic Analysis and presented using the Singapore mathematics curriculum framework. Four main features of the comics instructional package: (1) humour; (2) story narrative; (3) scaffolding provided by the questions and (3) visuals and four main themes: Increase in (a) enjoyment; (b) understanding; (c) appreciation of real-world applications of mathematics and (d) participation during lessons; were uncovered. The use of comics could potentially impact positively on developing students’ Attitudes, Skills, Concepts and Processes of the Singapore mathematics curriculum framework in learning mathematics.

KEYWORDS:

• Comics for classroom instruction
• students’ responses
• visuals
• story narrative
• impact on student learning

Acknowledgements

It has cleared the University’s Ethics Review process approved under IRB-2017-01-028. All the comic strips presented in this paper were produced specially for the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This publication is funded by the research project AFR04/16TTL from the Singapore Ministry of Education and managed by the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The study has been cleared by the University Ethics Review under the numbers IRB2017-01-028 and IRB2015-09-013.