Success in Initial University Mathematics Courses of Students with Correspondence and Non-Correspondence Backgrounds in High School Mathematics

Abstract

A NUMBER OF studies have been conducted to determine whether students who make use of correspondence study achieve satisfactory re sults in terms of subject matter mastery. In general, these studies have been markedly consistent in indicating that such pupils succeed as well as or better than classroom students of the same ability, regard less of whether results are measured in terms of instructor's opinions, class marks earned, or performance on standardized tests. To date, however, there has been no experimental evidence to throw light on the question of how well pupils who study certain subjects by means of cor respondence instruction at the high school level succeed in these same s ? bject matter areas at the college level. The first step in the present study was to examine the 35,000 to 40, 000 permanent record cards of pupils who had taken high school cor respondence study with the University of Nebraska Extension Divi s i o n to secure the names of those students who had registered for study i n certain mathematics courses during the ten-year period from 1 9 4 0 to 1950 and who lived in the geographic area from which the University of Nebraska draws most of its undergraduate students in residence. The mathematics courses included were beginning algebra, plane geometry, advanced algebra, solid geometry, and trigonometry. It was found that there were 524 such students. Next, the records of the Office of the Registrar were checked to de termine which of these 524 people had later enrolled at the University of Nebraska. In each case where enrollment had occurred, the University record of the student was examined to determine if he had registered for at least one course in mathematics. There were 116 students who had done so. It was necessary to determine if any of these students had taken work in mathematics following their graduation from high school and p r eced ing their entrance to the University. In a number of cases students had received instruction in mathematics in the armed forces or had trans ferred mathematics credit from some other college. When these cases were eliminated there remained 79 students who had taken work in math ematics by supervised correspondence study in high school and had en