Difficulties in Basic Concepts of Mathematics in Higher Education: A Systematic Review

Abstract

This full paper presents the process and the results of a systematic review about students' difficulties in basic mathematics concepts in higher education. The main goal of this review is to identify the basic mathematics topics in which students face most difficulties. This tough relationship with mathematics begins a long time before the university, it can be identified at the first levels, during basic education, when students are introduced to arithmetic. According to studies, in most cases, there are two kinds of problems that can explain this learning difficulty: the first one is identified when it is related to the child's cognitive development, while the second kind of common learning difficulty is related to problems outside the child or in another particular problem. Also, it has been identified in the literature that when studying mathematics, a range of feelings can be triggered in students, ranging from positive feelings to negative ones. This perception can explain why students with a history of failures in mathematics believe that they are not able to construct the necessary knowledge to pursue higher education in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) courses. In Brazil, for instance, only 17% of students apply for a STEM course, while in countries in North America and Europe, this percentage reaches 24%. Therefore, this systematic review was conducted in order to analyze publications regarding difficulties related to basic math, faced by students in higher education. The results indicate various difficulty levels in a variety of mathematics topics, including functions and fractions in practical situations. The analyzed papers also point to the fact that the problems are faced when students are in the primary education and persists in higher education.