Mathematics Courses Research Articles

Comparative Study of Learning Outcomes among Students Engaged in Student Organizations and Those Not Participating in Student Organizations

This research aims to compare the learning outcomes of students who actively participate in student organizations with students who do not participate in student organizations in Basic Mathematics courses. The research design utilized a quantitative comparative approach with two sample groups, each consisting of 34 students who actively participate in organizations and 33 students who do not participate in organizations. The research instrument was a basic mathematics learning outcomes test, including objective and subjective aspects. The results of statistical tests indicated that the average score of students who actively participate in organizations (77.21) is higher than students who do not participate in organizations (72.58). Data analysis using the t-test showed a significant difference between the both groups (p = 0.026), confirming that students who are active in student organizations have better academic achievements. These findings support the alternative hypothesis, which states that there are significant differences in learning outcomes between the two groups. These results have the implication that participation in student organizations can make a positive contribution to student learning outcomes. Therefore, it is recommended for educational institutions and students to consider the potential benefits of involvement in student organizations as a strategy to improve academic achievement.

Infusing Quantitative Reasoning Skills into a Differential Equation Class in an Urban Public Community College

This research centers on implementing Quantitative Reasoning (QR) within a differential equations course at an urban public community college. As a participant in the Numeracy Infusion for College Educators (NICE) faculty development program, I sought to integrate QR skills into my curriculum. Students in the course were introduced to QR goals using real-world data sets, particularly those related to population growth, which aim to enhance their understanding, sharpen their problem-solving abilities, and cultivate a positive perspective on the real-world relevance of mathematics. Preliminary findings indicate varied levels of QR skill development among students. These results underscore the potential benefits of infusing QR into mathematics courses and provide insights for educators looking to adopt similar strategies in their teaching.

Description of Understanding Student Mathematical Concepts Based on APOS Theory in Online Lectures Derivative Material

Lectures conducted online still require students to be able to understand concepts with all existing limitations. The description of students' conceptual understanding carried out in this research uses Apos theory, namely action, process, object and scheme. The results of this research are expected to provide an overview or description of students' understanding of concepts based on APOS theory in derivative material. This research is descriptive research with a qualitative approach. The main instrument in this research is the researcher himself and the supporting instruments are test questions on derivative material and interview guidelines. The research subjects were students taking Mathematics courses from the Hospital Administration Study Program at STIKES Intan Martapura. The results of this research are that students who fulfill all APOS stages are in the high ability group of three people. None of the process and object stages were fulfilled by the low ability group. None of the scheme stages were fulfilled by the medium and low ability groups.

Using Student Reflections to Develop Deep Teaching

National studies continue to indicate that the graduating STEM student body is not representative of the diversity of the U.S. population. In addition to, or in the absence of, institutional change, instructors must learn how to implement equity-focused pedagogical changes in order to better support their students. This article describes my experience introducing a weekly reflection protocol in a proof-based mathematics course with the dual goals of promoting metacognition and opening an additional communication channel with my students. Towards these goals, this intervention was largely successful and I provide examples of how I was able to use what I learned from my students to better support them throughout the semester. Drawing on the “Deep Teaching Model” for faculty development, I share how this experience continues to be a critical component of my evolving teaching practice. Though this intervention on its own may not solve the representation and equity problems in our field, the self-awareness I developed through this experience has positioned me as a more effective instructor, mentor, and advocate.

The Use of Reparametrization and Constraints on Linear Models to Parse Qualitative and Quantitative Information for a Set of Predictors

The following study shows how reparameterizations and constraints of the general linear model can serve to parse quantitative and qualitative aspects of predictors. We demonstrate three different approaches. The study uses data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 on mathematics course-taking and achievement as an example. Results show that all mathematics courses are not equally predictive of math achievement. Thus, taking into account qualitative aspects of mathematics courses is useful. The study ends with a justification of quantifying qualitative aspects of predictors relative to a criterion with extensions to other linear models.

Prevailing Themes Across Corequisite Mathematics Courses: A Systematic Review

Adopting corequisite mathematics models to accelerate students’ completion of their introductory college-level mathematics course in their first year of college is prevalent across higher education institutions. This systematic review demonstrates the known research, evidence, and diversity of implemented corequisite mathematics models for prevailing themes across peer-reviewed articles.

How Chinese Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of Assessment for Learning Influence Their Responsibility for First-Year Mathematics Courses

Assessment for learning (AFL) has been associated with curriculum and teaching reform for the past three decades. However, studies on undergraduate students’ perceptions of their mathematics teachers’ AFL practices are still very limited in the Chinese higher education context. This quantitative study investigated three independent variables—teacher formal feedback and support, interactive dialog and peer collaboration, and learning-oriented assessment—that influence undergraduate students’ ability to take responsibility for their learning through the mediation of the factor of active engagement with subject matter in first-year mathematics courses. One hundred and sixty-eight students from a Chinese “double-first-class” university were recruited to provide valid questionnaire data using the convenience sampling method. Partial least-squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. The results showed that interactive dialog and peer collaboration, as well as learning-oriented assessment, have a direct effect on students’ active engagement with the subject matter and an indirect effect on undergraduate students taking responsibility for their learning in first-year mathematics courses. In addition, learning-oriented assessment was the biggest factor influencing undergraduate students’ ability to take responsibility for their learning in first-year mathematics courses. This study contributes by developing a conceptual model and providing new insights into Chinese higher education sectors on factors that can improve undergraduate students’ ability to take responsibility for their learning.

The role of mathematical knowledge in the development of critical and analytical thinking in students of technical university

Relevance. The labour market requires specialists with critical and analytical thinking skills. It is the study of mathematics that lays the foundations for the development of logical thinking, attention, and accuracy, starting from the school mathematics course. Purpose. The purpose of the study is the theoretical substantiation of the significance of the level of mathematical knowledge of students in the development of critical and analytical thinking skills. Methodology. Research methods: theoretical analysis and generalisation of pedagogical experience; conversations; questionnaires; analysis of special and popular scientific literature; use of mathematical statistics methods in processing the results of experimental research. Results. Students in each of the presented specialities were assigned to control and experimental groups. The selected pedagogical conditions were introduced into the educational process of the experimental group, and the students of the control group were taught according to the standard teaching technology. As a result of the experimental verification of the effectiveness of the development of interest in the study of mathematics, positive results were obtained � the level of mathematical knowledge of the students of the experimental group was 9% higher than that of students using conventional technology. Evaluation of the level of critical and analytical thinking was carried out according to the developed criteria in three stages: the first � before studying mathematics in the 1st year, the second � after completing the mathematics course, and the third � before defending diploma projects. Results: at the first stage, there was no difference between the results of the control and experimental groups, at the second stage the difference was 5%, and at the third stage � 7.1%. Conclusions. Thus, the students of the experimental groups were able to demonstrate a higher level of critical and analytical thinking. Bachelors with a higher level of critical and analytical thinking will be more in demand in the modern labour market. Keywords: development of interest in mathematics; teaching mathematics; development of critical and analytical thinking; educational process of the university

Incorporating art into a biology course: a student-curated art exhibition about COVID-19.

Incorporating art into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses can be an effective way to help students understand scientific concepts and think about those concepts more holistically. Additionally, art can be used to inform the public about scientific issues. To explore this topic more fully, we developed an assignment for an upper-level biology course in which students curated an art exhibition focused on the 2019 coronavirus disease, COVID-19. Working in pairs, students identified pieces of art in the College's permanent collection that they felt related to some aspect of the pandemic. Each pair wrote a short curator's statement and a more traditional academic essay. The works of art and the curator's statements were displayed on campus. Visitors to the exhibition were invited to complete a short survey about the exhibition and its relevance to COVID-19. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the students enjoyed and valued the assignment. Limited data from visitors to the exhibition show that they thought the art helped them think more deeply about the pandemic. Based on these results, we conclude that the development of art exhibitions in STEM courses can benefit the students and the public.

EDITORIAL: Humanizing Learning

This volume contains three articles that address the idea of humanizing online learning. learning technologies as platforms. The first by Olivia Stewart investigates work done to increase engagement and participation in an asynchronous course. The second is an implementation paper by Kam Moi Lee and her colleagues that investigated the role that online personas and journey mapping through the lens of equitable design practice. The third is a review of higher education mathematics homework and course platforms.Finally, April Burton contributed a book review of Caitlin Tucker’s recent book on Blended Learning.

Business students’ attitudes towards mathematics and performance in business mathematics: A case study of a Norwegian business school

Mathematical abilities and skills are useful knowledge for success in economic administrative studies. This article focuses on business students’ attitudes towards mathematics, their mathematical pathway in upper secondary school, and achievement in the compulsory course in business mathematics. The sample is from a survey of 260 business students from a university in Norway. The analysis is based on the framework of the attitudes towards mathematic inventory (ATMI). By comparing mean values this paper displays a strong link between students’ selection of mathematical level in secondary school and their performance in business mathematics. This result is confirmed by using a linear regression model. However, by bringing in ATMI in the model this article shows there is no longer any significant correlation between choices regarding mathematics in upper secondary school and achievement in business mathematics. Nor did gender or grade point average from high school have any significant effect. Only elements included in ATMI (self-confidence and motivation) had a significant effect. The reason is probably that it is not the students’ selection of mathematical level in secondary school, but their attitudes towards mathematics, that can explain success in business mathematics.

Investigating the Consequences of Mathematics Quizzes on Student’s Attendance and Success in Mathematics at Higher Learning Institutions. A Case of Institute of Accountancy Arusha (IAA)

Professionals with knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are in greater demand worldwide. Many Institutes and University have reorganized education and encouraged training to improve workers' and students' math and science skills in order to successfully meet this criterion. The main objective of educational and training initiatives is to enhance participants' comprehension of math and science. Few things are known about the frequency and reasons behind students' absences from class, despite the fact that many college professors worry about student attendance. For this study, I examined class attendance, and I discovered that it declined from the start to the end of the semester. The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of quizzes on students' attendance and math performance in higher education institutions. There is a clear pattern showing a direct correlation between math achievement and student attendance. Students who want to excel in their mathematics course need to establish productive study habits. For a duration of 14 weeks, students were split into two treatment groups and given instructions. Treatment group A completed simple quizzes for ten minutes at each session. The Treatment group B did not have access to the quizzes. Participants were given the quizzes for fourteen (14) weeks and questionnaires with closed-ended questions in order to collect data. The outcomes of the respondents' mathematics quizzes were used in the study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the collected data. Overall, the results showed that mathematics quiz had a statistically significant (0.05-two tailed) impact on students' academic performance in the subject. The effects of math quiz and math performance are strongly positively correlated. When all other variables are held constant. Instructors can eliminate the need for oral reviews of course progress and encourage students to review their lecture notes in advance. They can also support their efforts to help students transition from rote memorization to in depth understanding through class discussion. The study came to the conclusion that students who took quizzes frequently did better on the final examination and had higher grades in the mathematics course. I recommend that, this strategy/ method of teaching can also be applied for other modules or academic courses in order to prove students’ ability.

Study on the status and problems of teaching system of “medical advanced mathematics”: data based on a research of 11 universities in China

Background and aimDriven by Innovation 2.0 (the information age, the innovation form of the knowledge society), the form evolved by the Internet development, giving rise to economic and social development (“Internet +”). With this background, a novel approach is presented for fostering excellence in physicians, aligning with the contemporary demands of our era.MethodsSelf-administered questionnaire was used to facilitate the collection of data on medical advanced mathematics course offerings, distribution of teaching hours of each major and the perception of the course teaching system in 11 medical universities in China. The distribution of course offerings in each major was analyzed, and one-sample t-test was conducted on the perspectives of course offerings, content settings (theoretical & practical), educational objectives, teaching reforms, and Synthetical Sensation (SS) of the curriculum system and educational model.ResultsThe study included various specialties such as clinical medicine, pharmacy, public health, health management, and life sciences, all of which offered advanced mathematics course. The content of medical mathematics textbooks was designed to meet the practical needs of relevant professions, and encompass online laboratory classes and social practice. However, a noticeable misalignment was observed between the content of medical mathematics courses and the realistic requirements of professions (t = -3.614~-3.018, P < 0.05). The perceived difference in the completeness of curriculum systems was not significantly apparent. There was a difference in the perception of the effectiveness of teaching reforms (t = -4.485, P < 0.05), and there was a difference in the perception of the synthesis of the educational model in all cases (t = -5.067, P < 0.05).ConclusionThere are localized differences in curricula, and the number of course hours is basically reasonable; course content needs to be updated; the implementation of course objectives is not in place; the curriculum system can meet the needs of talent training; the innovation of the education model needs to be put into practice; and there are obvious differences in the comprehensive cognition of the teaching system and the education model. Based on the analysis of the problems, we build a new STC teaching mode with smart classroom based on “professional needs, practical needs and requirements for cultivating excellent physician talents”.

Math Education for Gifted İndividuals: Digital Gamification

This research aims to explore; "Equality and Equation" within the scope of primary education seventh grade mathematics course and the responses and feedback of gifted individuals towards a digital gamification approach to maths, their attitudes towards maths, impact on maths related anxiety. Experimental design with pretest-posttest design control group was used in this study. The study was carried out during the 2022-2023 academic year with a total of 30 seventh grade gifted students 15 of them from the experimental group and 15 in the control group. During the study, whilst the control group was taught without intervention, the experimental group was taught mathematics supported by digital gamification. Additionally, participants in the experimental group were asked to keep diaries during the implementation process, enabling them to reflect their thoughts on digital gamification-based teaching. In the study, it was concluded that digital gamification-based teaching positively affects attitudes towards mathematics among gifted students. After the program, anxiety levels amongst participating students decreased, it was also observed that between pre-test scores and post-test scores there was no statistically significant difference. In the study, students stated that mathematics lessons based on digital gamification were fun and their prejudices about the subject were broken.

Designing a blended delivery foundation mathematics course: Targeting self-efficacy, skill development and social connectedness

Foundation mathematics courses play a crucial role in allowing students who have not achieved the pre-requisite mathematics credits for tertiary studies to re-engage with STEM studies. This paper describes how targeting self-efficacy, skill development and social connectedness have influenced the design of a foundation mathematics course at a New Zealand university. These design goals are grounded in education literature, and the paper outlines how focusing on these goals has resulted in the design of a course that incorporates novel approaches to learning and assessment, including online and face-to-face components. These approaches include the use of large, automatically graded weekly quizzes; adaptive learning quizzes for essential skills such as fraction arithmetic; and an emphasis on face-to-face learning and connection through tutorials and collaborative problem-solving workshops. The paper concludes with reflections on the success of the course so far and raising questions for future investigation.

Making quadratic functions interesting: Students teams-achievement division instructional strategy

Algebra plays a central role in school mathematics as it is a critical factor for success in mathematics courses such as calculus and geometry. This investigation aimed to establish the effectiveness of students teams-achievement division (STAD) strategy on students’ academic achievement in algebra, Lagos State, Nigeria. A quasi-experimental model was employed for the study, which lasted for six weeks. Two secondary schools were chosen randomly and divided into experimental and control groups. The sample comprised 136 students (61 students in control group and 75 students in experimental group) from Ikorodu City, Lagos State, Nigeria. The quadratic functions assessment test, four questions (each with four items) with appropriate validation, served as the tool for data collection. Reliability was attained using the test-re-test method, with Pearson’s product-moment correlation analysis yielding a reliability index of 0.86. Three hypotheses were generated and analyzed using analysis of covariance at a significance level of 0.05. The results showed that students exposed to STAD had enhanced performance in algebra. Likewise, gender did not impact the achievement of the participants in algebra. It was recommended that the Nigerian Educational Research Development Council arrange workshops, training, and seminars on incorporating learner-friendly instructional strategies such as STAD.

Investigating Classroom Teachers’ Experiences on the Use of Digital Stories

This study aimed to investigate classroom teachers’ experiences on the use of digital stories in the mathematics teaching process by using the phenomenological research design. Digital stories and lesson plans prepared by the researcher for each primary school grade mathematics course were distributed to the participating teachers during the data collection process. Teachers were asked to teach their lessons with the digital story appropriate for the grade level. The classroom teachers stated that teaching mathematics with digital storytelling provided concretization of abstract concepts, ensured retention, increased attention towards the lesson, and facilitated the transfer of what they learned to real life. The danger of turning the use of technology into a habit, the hardship of preparing digital story meratials that could address students’ individual differences, insufficient technological equipment in the teaching environment, and problems related to time-consuming nature of the practice were main disadvantages of teaching mathematics via digital stories.

CREATING GRAPHS OF MATHEMATICAL FUNCTIONS USING MODERN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

Graphing functions and their construction play a very important role in the mathematics course. In the past, programming languages ​​had few options for graphing functions and were mainly created using the dot method. The text size of the computer program was also large. Modern programming languages ​​provide more options for creating function graphs. However, the capabilities of some modern programming languages ​​have not yet been explored at the required level. In this work, a new technology for creating graphs of functions in one of the modern programming languages ​​PascalAbc.Net is studied. New nomenclature of graphics modules and computer graphics operators are reviewed. On their basis, computer programs are developed for creating graphs of functions. The field of their application is shown, including for solving the system of equations, numerical methods. The function graphs in this work are created in an easy and efficient way, in which functional programming is applied.

An Error Analysis of TVET Students’ Responses to Optimisation Problems

Among the problems identified at Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, low achievement in mathematical subjects is the most prominent one. This paper documents a qualitative case study undertaken at TVET College in Gauteng with the purpose of exploring the National Certificate Vocational (NC(V)) Level 4 students’ errors and associated misconceptions when answering optimisation questions in differential calculus. The participants were 60 students who were registered for a course in mathematics. Data were generated from the written student responses to two non-routine test items followed by interviews. Using the Newman error hierarchical model to analyse the data, it was discovered that students errors were conceptual and procedural as well as systematic and non-systematic. The literature also alluded to instructional approaches as some of the causes of students’ misconceptions and the errors and that interventions should target students as well as the instructors.

Scientific and methodological foundations of professionally-oriented teaching of mathematics to students of agricultural direction

The education system has been fulfilling its function for many years, creating a system of education that corresponds to it. In particular, we can say about the content of the mathematics course and the structure of the course, teaching methods, use in the traditional form. Currently, teaching a mathematics course to undergraduate agricultural students who are not mathematicians is a problem for teachers. Its reason can be explained by the negative attitude of the vast majority of students of this direction to mathematics: “in the process of studying, students do not understand mathematics or do not understand any stage of training; the lack of simple and reliable mathematical examples that can be applied to a future profession.” Therefore, there is a need to update the teaching status of the current mathematics course.