Effect of Journal Writing on the Conceptual Understanding of Grade 11 Students in Mathematics

Conceptual understanding is essential to mathematics proficiency because it involves carefully applying mathematical concepts, relationships, and representations to different life contexts. However, some students struggle to develop mastery of conceptual understanding in mathematics across grade levels. This quasi-experimental explored the effect of journal writing on conceptual understanding among 30 Grade 11 students in a district school in San Jose, California, USA. Conceptual understanding of mathematics was measured using a teacher-made examination, while three experts evaluated the quality of journal outputs. The findings reveal that the participants had an excellent quality of journal outputs as rated by the experts. The levels of conceptual understanding of students with and without journal writing in their mathematics class increased based on the pretest and posttest results. The conceptual understanding of the students in mathematics increased in both groups; however, there was a higher increase in the experimental group. The respondents generally have favorable journal writing experiences in mathematics class based on the self- reported survey. The quality of journal outputs of the male respondents is comparable to those of the female respondents. However, the levels of their conceptual understanding of mathematics are significantly different.