The Contribution of Mathematics to the Engineering Education in the Students’ Assessment

Zeidmane, Anda; Technologies, Latvia; Rubina, Tatjana

doi:10.22616/reep.2018.030

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 2 publications

(2 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Test results on the elementary concepts of the students from the FIT and EF are shown in Fig. 2 The results obtained in 2015 [5] showed that only 24.7 % of the first year students from FIT have received more than 70 % of the assessment score and more than 45 % of students have received less than 50 % of the score. Comparing this year test results with 2015, it can be concluded that students' knowledge in mathematics had become even worse.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Student - related factor for dropping out in the first year of studies at LLU engineering programmes

Zeidmane¹,

Rubina²

2017

Engineering for Rural Development

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. In the 17th SEFI seminar, "Mathematical Education of Engineers", which was held in 2014, it was noted that many students have big problems starting their studies because of their lack of mathematical competencies. However, the low level of mathematical competence is not the only cause for dropping out in the first year of studies. There are many causes of student failure in universities and the main of them are: 1) studentrelated factors, 2) life and socioeconomic issues, 3) failures of the educational system. The aim of this research is to study the causes for dropping out in the first year of studies among engineering students at the Latvia University of Agriculture (LLU). The study is based on the analysis of mathematics test results of students from the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Information Technologies as well as on the survey data analysis. The survey collected data and opinions regarding students': 1) attitude towards learning; 2) efforts in the study process 3) motivation and interest; 4) personality issues such as lack of social connections, lack of the support system and network, and poor self-esteem and self-confidence 5) economic issues. The analysis of the survey results showed that the core problem at the LLU is not only insufficient students' background knowledge in mathematics, but also their attitude towards learning, laziness to make efforts to do additional tasks or attend tutorials and lack of self-control. Students need to be motivated to want to learn and work hard to make faster gains and learn better than those who are bright but less motivated.Keywords: causes of failures, student related factors, mathematics. IntroductionResearches on student dropout causes [1-4] and possible prevention ranges take place from the early 20th century until now. Especially a large number of dropout students is in engineering specialities. In the 17th SEFI seminar, "Mathematical Education of Engineers", which was held in 2014, it was noted that many students have big problems starting their studies because of their lack of mathematical competencies. Similarly, at the Latvia University of Agriculture (LLU) more than 25 % of the engineering specialities' students drop out just after the first year, in which mathematics is one of the basic subjects. Doing research on the reasons of failure in mathematics among engineering students at the Latvia University of Agriculture, which will be published in the International Scientific Conference REEP-2017, it was found that the low level of mathematical competence is not the only cause for dropping out in the first year of studies. Lot of the university teaching staff have surveyed their students to give their views on why students fail courses and drop out of college. As the root causes of the students' failure at the university motivation and study habits are mentioned. The other important factors mentioned are academic readiness and student attitudes. Of course, students, who have a good understanding of the content being taught, usually ar...

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Unfortunately, the students' interest in these courses was very small [5]. It really shows the LLU students' low organizational skills, especially setting priorities.…”

Section: Fig1 Identified Categories Of Root-cause Factors [4]mentioning

confidence: 99%

Student - related factor for dropping out in the first year of studies at LLU engineering programmes

Zeidmane¹,

Rubina²

2017

Engineering for Rural Development

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, a recent survey of first-year students shows that mathematical competences acquired in secondary schools are mediocre. For example, only 1 in 6 students self-reflected to be able to think mathematically and just 10% of secondary school graduates got reasoning skills during mathematics course (Zeidmane, Rubina, 2018). Based on this and other surprising evidence, researchers conclude secondary school graduates are not ready for studies at the university (Zeidmane, Rubina, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors Affecting the Result of a Secondary School Math Exam

Vorobjovs¹

2019

Rural Environment Education Personality (REEP)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The results of the Latvian students in the mathematics exam are below expectations from year to year at an average score of 37 % over past three years being the worst result among all centralized exams (CE) in Latvia. Despite these worrying statistics, only three researches were published in the last 10 years by responsible institutions, mostly covering bad news. This is why the aim of this article is to encourage scientific discussion on undisputed unsatisfactory results in math, to determine factors with the greatest influence on the results of a secondary school math exam and to discuss potential improvements in preparing for the exam. The study was held in Marupe Secondary School in suburb of Riga, Latvia. A huge amount of data was collected about 53 respondents over their three years of studying in high school classes and after passing the exam. All obtained data were analyzed in search of correlation between exam score and all kinds of factors. Factors with the highest impact turned out to be results in physics, Latvian and biology, problem solving and modelling skills, proactively asking for help if a student did not understand the concept. It is also useful to learn factors that have a negative correlation with exam results, for example, regular homework assignment led to significantly lower result in the exam. During this research it proved to be wrong to consider that solving past exams is a factor with positive interdependence with exam score, because no correlation was found. It is significant to discuss these and all kind of other data-based findings on why student results in mathematics in Latvia are this low to prevent relying on stereotypes reproduced for years and to keep on searching for the best approaches of teaching and learning mathematics.

show abstract

Exploring contexts: the connection between mathematics and electricals/electronics for pre-service technical teachers

Pokuah,

Taley

2024

Int J Technol Des Educ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Contribution of Mathematics to the Engineering Education in the Students’ Assessment

Cited by 3 publications

References 2 publications

Student - related factor for dropping out in the first year of studies at LLU engineering programmes

Student - related factor for dropping out in the first year of studies at LLU engineering programmes

Factors Affecting the Result of a Secondary School Math Exam

Exploring contexts: the connection between mathematics and electricals/electronics for pre-service technical teachers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About