Teaching and Learning Mathematics Visually or Verbally: A Comparison of Two Teaching Approaches and Investigation of Interactions With Pupil Cognitive Style

Abstract

Despite mathematicians’ valuing the ability to visualize a problem and psychologists’ finding positive correlations of visual-spatial ability with success in mathematics, many educationists remain unconvinced about the benefits of visualization for mathematical understanding. One reason for this is evidence that students considered to be visualizers tend to have specific problems with the subject. In this research, “visual” and “verbal” teaching approaches were compared through teaching a range of early secondary school mathematics topics to two classes using one or the other approach. The pupils were assessed using measures of specific cognitive abilities and of visualizer-verbalizer cognitive style. The two classes were compared through a post-intervention test of mathematical competency, on which the verbally taught class scored significantly higher. No interactions were found between teaching style and the learner’s preferred style although the pupils identified as “visualizers” did tend to perform less well.