Long-term retention of basic mathematical knowledge and skills with engineering students

This study focuses on the long-term retention of basic mathematical techniques in a first-year calculus course, involving a sample group of engineering students at the University of Pretoria. The study investigates which and how much of the basic mathematical knowledge and rote skills acquired in the first year of study is retained after a further two years of study. A quantitative and qualitative investigations show that, in general, there is a significant decline in performance over a two-year period. There are, however, areas in which students still performed reasonably well after the elapsed period or even showed improvement. The research is of diagnostic value in that it assists course designers in determining what basic mathematical skills and knowledge are retained after a period of two years in their teaching approach to and emphasis of different topics.     

South African Primary Mathematics Teachers’ Experiences and Perspectives About Lesson Study

This study aims to investigate the perspectives of primary school teachers in South Africa, who participated in a Lesson Study (LS) project, on this professional development process and about their professional learning. The study followed a mixed approach, with data collected through a questionnaire, followed up by interviews. A novel approach in this study was to source teachers’ experiences of the individual stages of LS as well as of the integrated process. Teachers’ perspectives on LS were categorised into 5 themes: collaboration — commitment and the free rider effect, confidence issues, teachers’ knowledge and skills, misconceptions about the LS approach, and external issues including concerns over time of teachers and learners, systemic challenges and school management. Using teachers’ individual and focus group inputs in the questionnaire and the interviews, we report about their experiences.

     

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ VIEWS OF THE ROLE OF MATHEMATICS IN THEIR FUTURE

We report on an international study about mathematics students’ ideas of how they will use mathematics in their future study and careers. This builds on our previous research into students’ conceptions of mathematics. In this paper, we use data from two groups of students studying mathematics: those who participated in an in-depth interview and those who completed an open-ended questionnaire. We found that their responses could be grouped into four categories: don’t know; procedural skills; conceptual skills; and professional skills. Although some students held clear ideas about the role of mathematics, many were not able to articulate how it would be used in their future. This has implications for their approach to learning and our approach to teaching.     

The implementation of inclusive education in South Africa after ten years of democracy

Inclusive education in South Africa has not been promoted as simply one more option for education but as an educational strategy that can contribute to a democratic society. After the end of the Apartheid era the new democratic government committed itself to the transformation of education and key policy documents and legislation stress the principle of education as a basic human right as enshrined in the Constitution. White Paper 6: Special Needs Education, building an inclusive education and training system (2001) provides a framework for systemic change for the development of inclusive education. As a philosophy, the concept of inclusive education in the South African context embraces the democratic values of equality and human rights and the recognition of diversity. Research however indicates that multifaceted societal changes, encompassing educational reforms and contextual changes, including the management of diversity in schools, have had a negative impact on the implementation of inclusive education. After ten year of democracy, the enduring tension between changing the structure of education and changing the process of education is still influencing progress. Enhancing the recognition and acceptance of the basic rights of all South African children to be accommodated in inclusive school communities therefore remains a challenge.     

Transfer of algebraic and graphical thinking between mathematics and chemistry

Students in undergraduate chemistry courses find, as a rule, topics with a strong mathematical basis difficult to master. In this study we investigate whether such mathematically related problems are due to deficiencies in their mathematics foundation or due to the complexity introduced by transfer of mathematics to a new scientific domain. In the investigation we exposed a group of students to a chemistry instrument based on the Nernst equation in electrochemistry, and an equivalent group of students to a similar mathematics instrument in which the questions were stripped of all chemistry context. Both tests contained items requiring algebraic as well as graphical skills. Students experienced few problems with the algebraic questions in both the chemistry and mathematics tests. Their graphical construction and interpretation skills, on the other hand, are inadequate, as can be seen from the poor performance in both the mathematics and the chemistry results of the graphical question. Our conclusion is that the problem seems to lie at the mathematics side and is not due to the transfer of mathematics to an application. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 197–218, 2008.