Senior secondary mathematics students’ perceptions of their learning preferences when working with graphing calculators

Educational technologies, on one hand, have the potential to promote student collaboration and learning. On the other hand, students use personal technologies such as the graphing calculator (GC) individually in high stake mathematics examinations. Hence it is important to investigate students’ learning preferences when working with the GC. In this large scale survey study, Singaporean students’ were asked about their most preferred mode for learning to use the GC: individually, cooperatively and competitively, and to explain why. It was found that most students preferred cooperative approach when working with the GC, citing benefits of learning from peers as reasons. Students with individual social learning preferences tended to cite increased learning outcomes as. The implication on teaching is that teachers need to provide more opportunities for students to collaborate and learn from one another when learning mathematics with the use of graphing calculators.