The impact of the mathematics support centre on the grades of first year students at the National University of Ireland Maynooth

Bhaird, Ciarán Mac an; Morgan, Tadhg; O’Shea, Ann

doi:10.1093/teamat/hrp014

Cited by 33 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Two methods that have traditionally been used in these contexts are anonymous student surveys and/or statistical analyses of student grades, as in Mac an Bhaird et al (2009). More recently automatic programs that can track tutor use have become available.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Envisioning a Quantitative Studies Center: A Liberal Arts Perspective

Karaali¹,

Choi²,

Sood³

et al. 2010

Numeracy

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Several academic institutions are searching for ways to help students develop their quantitative reasoning abilities and become more adept at higher-level tasks that involve quantitative skills. In this note we study the particular way Pomona College has framed this issue within its own context and what it plans to do about it. To this end we describe our efforts as members of a campus-wide committee that was assigned the duty of investigating the feasibility of founding a quantitative studies center on our campus. These efforts involved analysis of data collected through a faculty questionnaire, discipline-specific input obtained from each departmental representative, and a survey of what some of our peer institutions are doing to tackle these issues. In our studies, we identified three critical needs where quantitative support would be most useful in our case: tutoring and mentoring for entry-level courses; support for various specialized and analytic software tools for upper-level courses; and a uniform basic training for student tutors and mentors. We surmise that our challenges can be mitigated effectively via the formation of a well-focused and -planned quantitative studies center. We believe our process, findings and final proposal will be helpful to others who are looking to resolve similar issues on their own campuses

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Envisioning a Quantitative Studies Center: A Liberal Arts Perspective

Karaali¹,

Choi²,

Sood³

et al. 2010

Numeracy

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“…It appears that only positive outcomes and opportunities arise from the provision of drop-in support by student teachers at HEIs to secondary students. When initially established, our hope was to replicate the benefits of MLS for undergraduates (Mac an Bhaird et al, 2009;Lawson et al, 2019) with secondary students. While we have only briefly summarised their feedback in this paper, secondary students who avail of our support, or MLS initiatives provided by other HEIs (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Ireland, although the study of mathematics is compulsory throughout secondary school for the vast majority of students (O'Sullivan et al, 2014), there are widespread concerns about the teaching and learning of mathematics (Treacy et al, 2016, p. 398) and the high-stakes summative examinations (Leaving Certificate) at the end of secondary school. Therefore, in 2008Therefore, in -2009, as a result of MLS evaluations at MU which identified positive benefits for MU students of engaging with MLS (Mac an Bhaird et al, 2009), the first author proposed to extend drop-in MLS to local secondary school students.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Win-Win-Win: Drop-in Mathematics Support for Secondary School Students

Mac an Bhaird,

McGlinchey,

Mulligan

2024

MSOR

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Mathematics Learning Support (MLS), which is available in the majority of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Ireland and the UK, is traditionally available only to students of those institutions. In this paper, we describe a drop-in model of MLS at Maynooth University (MU) which has been available for secondary school students since 2009. This service is mainly staffed by volunteer undergraduate trainee teachers. Their feedback, the main focus of this paper, which has been collected over ten years, indicates that this experience has had a positive impact on their teaching practice. School students are also very positive about the support and MU enthusiastically endorses the service. We conclude that there are no obvious downsides to the provision of this type of support and we believe that more institutions should consider making it available.

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“…They aim to be supportive, judgement free and helpful towards students. Support centres such as these have been shown to have a particular benefit to at-risk students (Mac an Bhaird, Morgan, & O'Shea, 2009).…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Investigation of the Role Programming Support Services Have for Mature Students.

Nolan

Thompson

Noone

et al. 2020

6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'20)

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Programming support services for introductory programmers have seen a rise in popularity in recent years with third level institutions around the world providing “safe spaces” for students to practice their programming skills and get supports without the risk of being judged by anyone. These services appear in many different structures including Support Centres, Software Studios and help desks. The common trend however is that all the users of these services, in general, report that the service has helped them in their studies and garnered them with more confidence in their ability. This paper examines the role which our Computer Science Centre played for students who attended the support service during an intensive higher diploma course. The intensive course is a 3-week course tailored to students who have previously completed a degree in a field not related to CS, and covers CS1 and CS2 material. The structure and design of the support service is outlined in this paper along with the supports offered. A high-level survey was conducted to investigate the effect of the service on students programming self-efficacy. Study design and methodology are described in detail. Early findings suggest that the support services offered to these students improved their belief in their own programming ability which in turn improved their exam grade outcome. The findings provide valuable evidence to justify future research into the functions of support services with the computer science domain.

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The impact of the mathematics support centre on the grades of first year students at the National University of Ireland Maynooth

Cited by 33 publications

References 3 publications

Envisioning a Quantitative Studies Center: A Liberal Arts Perspective

Envisioning a Quantitative Studies Center: A Liberal Arts Perspective

Win-Win-Win: Drop-in Mathematics Support for Secondary School Students

An Investigation of the Role Programming Support Services Have for Mature Students.

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