We examine a group (N = 88) of Swedish first-year engineering students, their motivation, self-efficacy, and beliefs about the nature of mathematics, and how these relate to their task performance in mathematics. In our data, engineering students who emphasized the exact reasoning in their view of mathematics performed significantly better in a set of mathematical tasks than those who emphasized the applications of mathematics. Similarly, the higher self-efficacy and the intrinsic and utility values of mathematics relate to better performance in the tasks. In general, the students' task performance was quite modest in relation to the expressed self-efficacy and motivational values.
This paper presents ‘expert opinions’ on what should be taught in a first-year linear algebra course at university; the aim is to gain a generic picture and general guiding principles for such a course. Drawing on a Delphi method, 14 university professors—called ‘experts’ in this study—addressed the following questions: What should be on a first-year linear algebra undergraduate course for engineering and/or mathematics students? How could such courses be taught? What tools (if any) are essential to these two groups of students? The results of the investigation, these experts’ opinions, mainly concern what should be in a linear algebra course (e.g. problem-solving and applications) and what students should be able to do. The experts also emphasized that certain theoretical aspects (e.g. proofs, abstract structures, definitions and relationships) were more important to mathematics students. There was no real consensus among the experts on teaching methods or the use of digital tools, but this lack of consensus is interesting in itself. The results are discussed in relation to extant research.
Denne artikkelen diskuterer hva ingeniørstudenter gjør når de laerer lineaer algebra. Arbeidet inngår i et pågående forskningsprosjekt om laering, og grunnlagsdataene for artikkelen ble samlet inn ved at studentene besvarte et obligatorisk spørreskjema der spørsmålet om hva de gjør når de laerer lineaer algebra, ble stilt som et åpent spørsmål. Dataene representerer derfor studentenes egne ord om hva de gjør, og svarene er analysert med bruk av tematisk analyse. Resultatene er gitt i form av fremkomne temaer med tilhørende koder og er eksemplifisert for å vise hva studentene vektlegger og hvilke sammenhenger som finnes mellom aktivitetene. Resultatene gir en systematisk informasjon om ingeniørstudentenes aktiviteter i laeringsprosessen, noe som kan vaere til hjelp i utviklingen av undervisningen i lineaer algebra spesielt og i matematikk generelt.
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