Numeracy skills are vital for a child with diabetes as they need to be able to manage their
diabetes effectively, in order to protect one from the complications that come with diabetes.
There have been numerous studies that illustrate the poor numeracy skills in children with
diabetes. A numeracy intervention specifically related to diabetes was put into place to
illustrate whether or not such an intervention is effective in improving a child’s diabetic
numeracy ability, which will lead to the improvement of diabetes self-management in the
future.
A Quantitative quasi-experimental pre-test - post-test non equivalent control group design
was conducted to explore the efficacy of an applied numeracy intervention in a South Africa
type 1 diabetic child population. The study group comprised of 58 children with type 1
diabetes, each group consisted of 29 participants, and each participant in the experimental
group was closely matched according to their level of formal education, grade, age and sex to
a research participant in the control group. Both groups were measured before and after the
intervention.
The children were between the ages of 8 and 13. All participants were in formal education
between Grades 3 and Grade 8. Results revealed that participants in both groups had lower
‘functional’ grades as compared to their ‘actual grade’ level which suggests that they
performed below their expected grade level. Participants performed better in areas assessing
basic mathematical skills than areas which assessed applied diabetes mathematical skills. The
intervention was shown to be effective as analyses revealed that there was a highly significant
difference (p<0.001) between the Pre and Post Test (applied mathematical sections) of the
experimental group which took part in the intervention.
This research is only the starting point for the assessment of the effectiveness of a numeracy
component in diabetes related education in South Africa, and through this one would hope
that more research in South Africa will be done in this area.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/12615 |
| Date | 02 April 2013 |
| Creators | Cronin, Meagan |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
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