The effectiveness of integrating geometer's sketchpad software in phase-based geometric learning

Abstract

The aim of this study was to study the effect of learning activities based on the van Hiele's phases of learning geometry in the environment of GSP software on students' geometric thinking. A quasi-experimental design was employed in which participants were assigned to either the treatment or the control groups. Ten students, five from each group, were randomly chosen for interviews in order to identify the early levels of their geometric thinking. The items used in these interviews were the items contained in the van Hiele's Geometry Test (vHGT). Students in both groups were found to have achieved a good van Hiele first level of thinking in the preinterview. In the post-interview, students were asked for their views whether a square was a parallelogram, and whether a square was a rhombus. However, for both of these items, almost all the students in the control group provided inaccurate answers. Meanwhile, three students in the treatment group agreed and provided clear justifications for those items. This finding indicates that activities in geometry topics based on the van Hiele's phases of learning geometry and aided with GSP software can be applied to the students in order to enhance their geometric thinking levels.