ABSTRACT
Mathematics and statistics support (MSS) plays an important role at many universities. Typically, support has been provided in person, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, online provision was required. This paper reports on a scoping study comparing how support services changed during the pandemic at institutions in Germany and Great Britain & Ireland (GBI), exploring how well online MSS worked, and what can be learned for the future. As MSS in Germany differs in history and structure from that in GBI, we contrast results from the two locations. A total of 82 participants from 44 individual institutions answered an online questionnaire. Although at first, support was used less by students, engagement has begun to recover. The survey included questions addressing issues raised in previous studies, and answers showed notable differences between the two jurisdictions. In GBI, service providers felt that students with low confidence or time restrictions can benefit from online provision. In Germany, online spaces for student collaboration without tutoring was found helpful. Even though most respondents want a return to face-to-face, practitioners are aware of the benefits of online support, and it becomes apparent that certain services will still be offered online and could especially serve specific student groups. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
ABSTRACT
We investigated university students' study of mathematics in the digital setting context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We gathered data from a survey of 89 students enrolled in a 'Linear Algebra 1' course including affective variables, learning strategies, social relatedness and resources considered useful. The results indicate students' high effort and self-regulation and a high variation in affective characteristics and social relatedness. All the traditional aspects of mathematics teaching (lecture, tutorials and lecture notes) were rated as particularly useful. In addition, the videos from external resources were rated as equally useful as the teaching team's videos. In contrast, traditional literature such as textbooks was rarely considered useful. The most useful resource rated was communication with peers, underlining the important role of social learning despite fully digital learning environments. Finally, a cluster analysis based on students' rated usefulness of the resources led to three different user-types. Whereas the 'digitals' find the external digital resources very useful (videos, webpages, etc.), the 'traditionalists' rate the digitalized traditional resources best (lecture, tutorials, etc.). All resources receive uniformly good ratings from a third group ('all resource users'). We reflect on our findings in light of the pandemic and describe directions for future research. © 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.
ABSTRACT
Due to the COVID-19 crisis, many courses have been offered digitally. Using data from n = 1,173 business students participating in a preparatory mathematics course at a German university that covered the same content as in 2018, 2019 and 2020, we examine how students' participation and the effect of the preparatory course changed. The data show that the participation rate has fallen slightly, but students' participation is rather similar to preceding years. Interestingly, students have participated more intensively. There are clear signs of dishonesty in the self-test (use of a calculator) and significant changes in predictors of performance. In particular, the effect of students' engagement in the course on their performance substantially increased. Further, we found a gender gap in performance affecting women. Finally, the data show that digital courses can be as effective as on-campus courses. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.