Impact of a contextualized school garden on fifth-grade students’ mathematics performance in a rural setting: baseline findings and intervention design
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This study examines changes in fifth-grade students’ mathematics performance following the implementation of a school garden as a contextualized teaching strategy in a rural school. The aim was to determine variations in specific mathematical skills—basic operations, problem solving, and metric thinking—associated with a situated pedagogical intervention involving real tasks such as measurement, estimation, area calculations, and data recording/analysis in the garden. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, using a one-group pre-experimental design (pretest–posttest) and an educational action-research framework organized in cycles of planning, action, observation, and reflection. The focal population included all fifth-grade students (N = 18) in a multigrade rural setting. Data were collected through equivalent baseline and final performance tests, a structured observation rubric, a student portfolio, a teacher-researcher field diary, and a teacher survey for institutional characterization. Baseline findings from institutional records (2023–2025) showed an increase in low mathematics performance (58%, 61%, and 64%). Competency-based analysis indicated higher difficulties in problem solving (72%), reasoning (68%), and modeling (63%). Regarding basic operations, the greatest difficulties were found in multiplication (67%) and division (74%). Posttest results showed positive variations in total score (p = 0.003; r = 0.710), as well as in problem solving (p = 0.034; r = 0.500) and metric thinking (p = 0.008; r = 0.624). The study concludes that school gardens represent a relevant pedagogical environment for developing mathematics in rural contexts. The pretest–posttest evaluation, triangulated with process evidence, enables a systematic assessment of changes associated with the intervention while acknowledging causal inference limitations inherent
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