The Impact of Mitigating Refugee Students' Mathematics Learning Loss on Their Resilience Levels

Abstract

Refugee children face many difficulties on their migration routes. These challenges continue even after arriving in the destination country. It is important for the world's growing child migrant population to successfully adapt to the host country. Otherwise, there is a risk for future generations facing psychological, social, and academic challenges. Education and training play an important role in the adaptation process of children and youth. The focus of this study was to overcome the math learning losses of refugee students by changing the approach to mathematics in order to increase their resilience. For this purpose, a one-group pretest-posttest quasiexperimental design was used. Among the refugee students now living in Germany and Greece, two were Syrian and 40 were Turkish. Within the framework of the project, a two-month problem-based mathematics education program was carried out for the students. The Connor- Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-25) (2003) was administered to the refugee students at the beginning and end of the program. In addition, the students' views on the mathematics education program were taken. According to the students' views, the program was efficient, and the learning losses were mitigated. It was also found that the mitigation of math learning losses increased the resilience of refugee students significantly (p<.01).