Impact of Integrating IT in Mathematics Teaching Strategies on Undergraduate Foundation Students at the Bahrain Polytechnic

Abstract

The current trend in tertiary education is to integrate IT into teaching and learning strategies to enhance the students' learning experiences. Faculty is therefore encouraged to make use of available IT infrastructure and applications as a platform to provide online access to the study materials as well as additional online module activities aimed at enhancing student learning. This paper reports on a study conducted on learners and faculty to investigate whether IT-integrated strategies utilized by faculty has impacted students' academic experiences and goals. Data collected in this study contrasted the influence of technology-driven lessons on students' performance before and after integrating IT into teaching and learning strategies. The study focused specifically on Foundation Mathematics students at the Bahrain Polytechnic by comparing data from pre and post IT-integrated teaching. Quantitative data collected, was analysed, statistically, using t-Test and Regression analysis. The results indicated that the students' overall grades in the Mathematics courses were affected, especially in their performance in interpreting results and that students tend to be more focused on understanding the implications of solutions to mathematical problems and expanding their knowledge beyond the subject boundaries, in contrast to focusing on only solving mathematical problems. Furthermore, the qualitative data collected via students/tutors focus group discussions strongly supports the data obtained from the statistical analysis and emphasizes on the positive effect of how integrating technology in teaching and learning enhances students' learning experiences.