Browsing by Subject "dyskalkulia"

Currently in Finland there are very limited number of assessment tools in use to identify mathematical learning difficulties in children aged 9 to 16. This study examines the validity of the FUNA-DB measure for assessing mathematical learning difficulties in terms of concurrent validity. The objective of this study is to determine how FUNA-DB correlates with a previously developed RMAT measure, and how, compared to the RMAT measure, FUNA-DB identifies those children and adolescents who potentially should be suspected to have a mathematical learning difficulty. This research is part of a larger FUNA research project in Finland. The study was performed by having 318 children tested with both FUNA-DB and RMAT measurements. The analysis of the data was performed using quantitative research methods. The correlation of FUNA-DB and RMAT was measured by task sections using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. In addition, configural frequency analysis was used to determine whether both FUNA-DB and RMAT recognize the same weak students. In addition, descriptive statistics were examined. The results of this study showed that FUNA-DB and RMAT correlated with each other for all task sections (p <0.001). In addition, statistically significant correlation was identified between task sections where the tasks did not correspond to each other in terms of content. FUNA-DB and RMAT both identified the same low-performing students (p<0.01). The results of this study confirm that FUNA-DB appears to be a valid and effective assessment tool in identifying mathematical learning difficulties. Moreover, the study showed that the language best spoken by the student was not relevant to the results of the FUNA-DB measurement, while in the RMAT test, those who spoke Finnish outperformed (p<0.05) the students who did not speak Finnish as their mother tongue. Therefore, FUNA-DB does not seem to be tied to a student’s language skills and it specifically measures math proficiency, as it should. However, the as-sessment of the validity and reliability of the FUNA-DB test in this study remains rather one-sided, yet there are ongoing studies which examine the reliability and validity of FUNA-DB in other means.