What Is The Calculator Doing To Us?

Andrea Liotta

School of Education, Manhattan College

Sister Mary Ann Jacobs

April 22, 2022

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It is now 2022, and our world revolves around the internet. We see it everywhere,

everyone is getting involved. From little kids with iPads, to elderly adults with SmartPhones,

technology and the internet is becoming the new norm.

Technology is becoming more prevalent in schools and has an increasingly large role in

teaching and learning. It is seen at the middle school level that students begin to start using

advanced graphing calculators in their everyday math classes. With the use of these calculators

increasing, there comes the thought that “Students have become dependent on the technology

and fear failure without it” (Graham). The students are coming to know the calculators and they

are almost reliant on them to complete their work. Thus the purpose of this study is to examine

whether or not students are able to function without the use of calculators, due to their frequent

use with them everyday.

I have been working with a private Catholic High School and individually remotely

tutoring two of their students. I have observed when working through examples with the

students, that they frequently go to grab their calculators to input numbers for computations.

When working on an elimination problem, I had asked a student to multiply an expression by a

factor of 2. That student used her calculator to plug in the multiplication of the different

coefficients. As a student in the 9th grade, I was surprised with what I observed. I did not think

the student would need to solve a basic computation like that on a calculator. This is where a

possible hindrance of computational skills comes in. There is a lack of confidence in our

students’ and it is translating to their skills and ability to solve problems using solely their minds.

Diane Gowland researched calculator use in a classroom and believes that “Children

should not be performing simple or repeated calculations on their calculators, from which they

will gain very little, but should be allowed to use them for any calculations for which an adult
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would also require a calculator” (Gowland). Calculator use does not need to be prohibited from

children, but it should not be taken advantage of to compute basic problems that require skills

students have learned when they first started studying math.

Bob Glasgow and Barbara J. Reys collaborated to conduct a study in 1998 which works

to remodel a study previously conducted in 1980. This original study, conducted by Reys,

Bestgen, Rybolt and Wyatt had a group of 45 students making estimations on a problem.

Following that, they were then asked to use a calculator to compute the problem. Prior to the

experiment, the calculator had been programmed to show an answer that was incorrect. “In the

1980 study, 29 of the 45 participants (64%) questioned the calculator” (Glasgow). Many of the

students tested had second thoughts of what the calculator had displayed to them, and it made

them think more. Once the same study was replicated by Glasgow and Reys in 1998, “28% of

students questioned the calculator through the course of the interview” (Glasgow). In the 19 year

time period between the two studies, there was seen to be a 36% decrease of the students who

questioned their calculator. This is evident that the students were becoming more used to the

technology and they will listen to what it is telling them. “Confidence in their own reasoning

and/or estimation ability faded as the conflicting calculator-produced results continued”

(Glasgow). Glasgow observed the students becoming more prone to listening to their calculator

as opposed to their own computation skills, and they were less supportive of their own work and

thinking. After conducting a correlational study on the use of calculators, Sarah Greer looked

into the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards from 2000, which state

“students should, “develop fluency in operations with real numbers... using mental
computation or paper-and-pencil calculations for simple cases and technology for
more complicated cases” (p. 290). The calculator preferences in this study indicate that if
students have the option of using a calculator on simple cases, they may use the
technology instead of practicing paper-and- pencil skills and may come to rely on
calculators. It is not necessary to ban technology, but students must be taught how to use
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technology effectively so they develop computation skills and experience the benefits of
calculator use.” (Greer).

Greer mentions how the use of technology is understandable in a mathematics classroom, as long

as there are restrictions on the use, and technology is not getting overused. Sarah Greer’s study

worked to “explore the relationship between frequent calculator use and computation ability in

high school mathematics students” (Greer). Students in this study were given two 10 question

tests to complete. The results were evident in

“indicating that students who chose to complete more of the problems on the calculator
test with a calculator tended to answer fewer questions correctly on the non-calculator
test. These results indicate that there was a statistically significant relationship between
frequent calculator use and student computation abilities. Specifically, students who used
a calculator more frequently tended to score lower on a test of computation skills than
students who did not use a calculator as often” (Greer).

Sarah Greer’s study conducted of the 99 Algebra II students is important in showing the

correlation between calculator use and computational skills. Greer made many mathematical

computations with her results and how the students performed on each one of the 10 question

tests. Her [Greer] study is predominant to show how the calculators are impacting students on a

daily basis. After conducting her study, Greer notes that each school is in charge of

implementing their own policy for technology use, yet she mentions how it is important to follow

up and work to meet the NCTM Standards. The increase in the use of technology is showing that

students are becoming more reliant on it and they are now tending to question their own abilities

and lack the confidence to compute problems on their own.

It is important and beneficial to study the calculator use as technology is becoming more

used in our day to day lives in a classroom. The main goal is for students to learn to the best of

their ability and to gain new skills in mathematics as they ascend through their courses.
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As previously mentioned, the main goal of this research is to study whether or not the

growth of technology in the classrooms is having an impact on students’ mathematical skills.

Specifically, I want to look into how the calculator impacts students when problem solving. The

objectives of this research include: helping students note that their calculator is unnecessary for

basic computations, instilling confidence in their problem solving skills, showing teachers that

technology should have limitations in the classroom, specially the math settings. The question to

be answered is ‘does the excessive use of the calculator in a mathematics classroom help or

hinder students' basic mathematical computational skills’?

Every student is different in the way that their minds work and how they may work out a

problem. With that being said, I believe this research may be the most effective to test on

students individually, as opposed to looking at test scores from class to class. By individually

looking at the students, it allows the focus to be on specific differences that can be noticed in that

individual students' work. This study is going to involve major comparisons between the

students' work with and without the use of a calculator.

A way that I plan to study this is by giving students the opportunity to use their

calculator, and then restricting the calculator as well. This can be done within a singular unit. It

can be a day by day study, where one day I can allow students to use their calculator throughout

the whole class, but then the next day, they are not allowed to use it at all. Since this study can be

conducted within the same unit, I will be looking at how the students do with things such as

guided and independent practices, as well as with the assessments. The days will have a similar

set up with the work the students will be doing. This is a way to limit the factors that may cause

the students to respond differently to the use of the calculator. An importance of this study is that

many things remain the same for the students. As known, there are many factors that can impact
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students’ learning, and so it is important to have many constants when conducting the study, so

that their learning and their actions only reflect the use and disuse of the calculator.

An example of when this can be used in a 7th grade mathematics classroom can be with a

proportions worksheet. The students can be asked to solve for a missing variable in a proportion.

This worksheet will not contain an overwhelming number of problems, yet it will not contain too

few problems. As a teacher it is important to get a good read on how the students respond to the

different factors given to them. With that being said, approximately 5-7 problems on a worksheet

will give a good sense of how the student does. This allows time for the teacher to circulate the

classroom and be able to note different observations about the students and how they are

working. This worksheet will be replicated twice, on two separate class days, with different

numbers in the questions, and the same difficulty of the questions. On one day when the students

are presented with this worksheet, they will not be allowed to use their calculators, yet on the

other day, they will be allowed to use their calculators.

While the students are working on the problems with the ability to use their calculators, it

is important to observe when they use it, how they use it, what they use it for, and how

frequently they are using it. It is important to examine their overall reliance on the calculator for

their computations. Christina L. Sheets conducted a study in one of her classrooms to examine

the effects on calculator use and she noticed that “When I didn’t let them use calculators it

seemed like some of them no longer could think” (Sheets). When the students are so prone to just

punching in numbers now, it takes them a minute to reset on how they should be solving

problems by themselves. While it will be important to monitor the students when they have the

calculator, it will also be important to monitor them when they do not and to see what work they

are writing out and how they are going about the examples.
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I will be comparing the assessments of the students when they were able to use the

calculator, and when they were not able to use it. In doing so I hope I will be able to come up

with a plan that includes a restriction for calculator use, in order to ensure that students are

working out their computational skills by hand. The way that I will go through and compare is by

looking at one students’ work at a time. I will take the individuals’ two worksheets and place

them side by side. This way, I am able to look at both of the worksheets and I am able to directly

compare and contrast the two different problem sets. Important things to look for include; the

quantity of work shown, the quality of work shown, if the student gets the correct or incorrect

answer, and any additional notes or scrap work they might have written for themselves on the

sheets. These are the main things that I will be looking for on the problem sets and I will use that

to try and determine how the student performs with and without the calculator.

Through this experiment, I am anticipating to see the two sheets looking different from

one another. I am expecting to see that the students are going to show much more work on the

sheet where they are not allowed to use the calculator, as opposed to when they are allowed. In

addition to that, I expect the non-calculator worksheet to look a little ‘messier’ due to the

students working out the majority of the problems on the worksheet, instead of punching the

numbers into the calculator and then writing out solely their answer. Although I am expecting to

see more work on the non-calculator sheet, I am also expecting to find that the students will be

struggling with the non-calculator worksheet, because it requires a different level of thinking and

computing. I anticipate that the worksheet with calculator use will be easier for the students, due

to the fact that they will use the calculator to do most of the work for them. I am predicting to see

a difference in the two types of worksheets that the students hand in.
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I hope that following my research I can help students with their basic mathematical

computational skills through the use of limited technology. While there are many good things

technology in mathematics can be used for, there are also many things it can be detrimental too.

Programming applications and graphing calculators can be helpful for advanced mathematics;

such as working with a matrix, dealing with factorials, graphing, etc., but they should not be

overused for solving basic computations. Thus through this research I hope to help teachers

incorporate calculator restrictions into their lessons and units so that the students are able to

compute problems using solely their skills. It is important not to lose or forget the main

mathematical skills that were taught to us at the beginning of our learning in Mathematics.

The use of technology is inevitable, but it is controllable. “The National Council of

Teachers of Mathematics (2000) states in the Technology Principle that technology cannot be a

replacement for understanding” (Greer). Technology is being used more, but it should not be a

substitution for actually learning the content. It is important for teachers to observe and notice

the basic computational skills of their students and how they work with and without a calculator.

As a student progresses through mathematics courses, their skills should be getting stronger, and

this comes from taking what you know and building off of it. It is difficult to build off of your

basic computational skills if they are no longer of use to you due to the technology available in

the classrooms. Calculator restrictions in classrooms can help better students' in the math

classroom and eliminate the diminishing of their basic mathematical computational skills.
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Work Cited

Glasgow, B., & Reys, B. J. (1998). The authority of the calculator in the minds of college
students. School Science and Mathematics, 98(7), 383-388.

Gowland, D. (1998). Calculators—Help or Hindrance?. Mathematics in School, 27(1), 26-28.

Graham, A. T., & Thomas, M. O. (2000). Building a versatile understanding of algebraic

variables with a graphic calculator. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 41(3), 265-282.

Greer, S., & McCoy, L. P. (2006). A study of the effect of calculator use on computation skills of
high school mathematics students. Studies in teaching.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (2000). Principles and standards for school
mathematics. Reston, VA: Author.

Sheets, C. L. (2007). Calculators in the Classroom: Help or Hindrance?.