Attitudes and Experiences in Liberal Arts Mathematics

Abstract

For many university students, the last formal experience in a mathematics classroom is a single semester "general education" mathematics class. Traditionally, students in this type of class often hold negative attitudes towards mathematics. Here I study a sample of students from this population (49 students at a large, urban, comprehensive public university enrolled in a "math for liberal arts majors" course) to research whether a positive experience in a freshman-level general education mathematics course correlates with a positive change in the students' attitude towards mathematics in general. I also explore which specific aspects of such a course contribute most to a positive student experience. The survey results show that while a positive experience in a freshman-level general education mathematics course correlates with positive responses in a student's attitude about several key variable components of attitude (including motivation to do mathematics, perceived usefulness of mathematics, and confidence while doing mathematics), it does not correlate with positive change. The course aspects that most correlate with a positive experience include the teacher/professor, difficulty level of the course, and workload.

Implications of Training in Incremental Theories of Intelligence for Undergraduate Statistics Students

“…The mathematics community has historically utilised a talent-driven approach to mathematics, emphasising that mathematics ability is innate (Clinkenbeard, 2015;Good et al, 2012;Leslie, Cimpian, Meyer, & Freeland, 2015). Alongside this empha-sis is a persistent stereotype that males are more capable of mathematical thinking and quantitative reasoning than females (Dweck, 2008;Good et al, 2012;Steel & Aronson, 1995).…”

Aesthetics in a Mathematics for Liberal Arts Project

“…While developing the course, we strove in particular to make the projects interesting (by including open-ended aspects that make every group's project unique), relevant (by including real-world problems such as calculating federal income taxes and a family budget), and encompassing (by including oral presentations, written reports, and aesthetic design of visual aids to incorporate different skills). The pedagogical basis and impact on student outcomes of such curriculum redesign and inclusion of projects are explored in [2,3,4,5,6,8]. To develop students' abilities to collaborate and communicate mathematically, all three projects were completed in groups of three or four outside of class over the span of three weeks and required both written reports and in-class oral presentations that included the design and use of visual aids.…”