Supporting Bioscience Students with Mathematical Difficulties in Higher

Education:

DDIG Conference Loughborough University

13 April, 2005

C Spickett, J Boyle & J WilsonUniversity of Strathclyde

j.boyle@strath.ac.uk

Difficulties in Mathematics

Concern about Standards (e.g. Smith, 2004) Dyscalculia or ‘Mathematics Disorder’ (DSM-IV)

“A. Mathematical ability, as measured by individually administered standardized tests, is substantially below that expected given the person’s chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education.

B. The disturbance in Criterion A significantly interferes with academic achievement or activities of daily living that require mathematical ability.

C. If a sensory deficit is present, the difficulties in mathematical ability are in excess of those usually associated with it.” (DSM-IV, APA, 1994)”

Developmental versus Acquired… Genetic Neurological Cognitive

Prevalence of Dyscalculia

Large-scale surveys of school-children suggest a prevalence of around 6-7% with no gender differences (c.f. dyslexia)

Half of those with dyscalculia have problems with number only and the rest have comorbid problems with reading

Prevalence of dyscalculia in adults and in students in higher education is unknown

Strathclyde University Survey: lower bound prevalence rate of self-reported mathematical difficulties in 1st and 2nd Year Bioscience students of around 10% (42/400, with response rate of 21%)

Recognition of the Need for Support

Increasing awareness and concern at low levels of mathematical competence for students entering HE programmes in science and engineering

Emerging awareness of the presence of dyscalculic students in HE, though little understanding of the obstacles faced

Disabled Students’ Allowance is available to dyscalculic students with study support needs But we need to identify the most effective support

methods…

Compensatory Support in HEI

Practical support includes: extra time in examinations use of a calculator access to notes/formulae and memory aids alternative formats for questions and answers

Use of a calculator can assist with computational inaccuracies, but still requires considerable mathematical and conceptual understanding

‘Reasonable adjustments’: how should these be determined…

What’s Missing?

To develop effective support systems for dyscalculic students in HE we need: More understanding of the obstacles/solutions for

dyscalculic students in HE Better understanding of accessibility issues for

dyscalculic students (and dyscalculic/dyslexic students)

Development of best practice teaching and assessment materials/methodologies

A better understanding of the scale and nature of the problem

Accessible software to support students in numeric tasks

Strathclyde University Dyscalculia Project

2nd year university student with difficulties in coping with the mathematics content of Biosciences courses

Long-standing history of problems in number at school which necessitated tutorial support

Assessment confirmed marked problems in both mathematical reasoning and numerical operations and problems also in working memory

Advice sought from Computer Science Department…

Multidisciplinary project involving Computer Science, Bioscience & Psychology Departments and Special Needs Service

Primary Aims

A. To explore the prevalence and nature of mathematical difficulties experienced by Bioscience students

B. To develop an IT-based intervention, BCalc, to support Bioscience students experiencing problems with mathematics, including those with dyscalculia

A. Survey of Mathematical Difficulties

Questionnaire devised by course tutor to identify nature of mathematical difficulties in Bioscience students in Strathclyde University

Items reflected mathematics requirements of calculations test in Practical Bioscience credit (BB206) in 2nd Year

All of these require fairly simple mathematical tasks, such as fractions, powers, manipulating equations, and logarithms

Nevertheless, a significant number of students struggle with these calculations, and fail the credit because of it

Questionnaire distributed to 400 1st and 2nd year Bioscience students in lecture theatres

(a) If the original E.coli culture contains 5.4 x 109 cfus ml-1 calculate the number of cfus ml-1 in bottle 5 after the serial dilution of the original culture, which was performed as described in the diagram above

(b) If bottle 5 is found to contain 1.9 x 104 cfus ml-1, what is the number of cfus ml-1 in the original culture

E coli culture

0.1 ml

9.9 ml 9.0 ml 9.0 ml 9.0 ml 9.0 ml

1 ml 1 ml 1 ml 1 ml

1 2 3 4 5

Sample Bioscience Exam Question

Format of Questionnaire

Problems (Y/N) with credits involving numerical calculations, mathematical functions [in 8 areas]

Rate confidence [1 to 5] in Algebraic functions Manipulating equations Logs Powers of 10 Decimal places Fractions Mental arithmetic Moles & Molarity Conversions between units Drawing graphs Dilutions

Findings from the Strathclyde Survey - 1 86 respondents (response rate 21%)

60 1st Year, 24 2nd Year and 2 did not disclose year 66 F, 17 M & 3 gender undisclosed Mean Age 19.01 years (SD 1.94) (range 17-30 years)

42 reported mathematical difficulties 32 F, 9 M & 1 gender undisclosed 29 1st year, 12 2nd year & 1 year undisclosed Mean Age 19.15 years (SD 2.30) (range 17-30 years) Average no. of difficulties reported: 2.57 (range 0-8),

SD=1.80 Lower-bound prevalence rate of mathematical

difficulties of at least 10% amongst 1st and 2nd year Bioscience students

Findings from the Strathclyde Survey - 2 Students who reported difficulties in maths were

significantly less confident than those who did not report problems in the following areas: Algebra (X2 = 6.28, p< 0.05) Logarithms (X2 = 6.62, p < 0.01)

76% of those reporting difficulties were female: links with mathematics anxiety? (Ashcraft, Kirk & Hopkins, 1998; Woodard, 2004)

Backward logistic regression for N=81 with no missing data revealed that difficulties with algebraic functions significantly discriminated 75% of those reporting problems and 68% of those reporting no mathematical difficulties

Odds are around 4:1 that a student reporting maths problems will have problems with algebraic functions

Coventry & Liverpool Hope Universities…

Strathclyde Questionnaire administered to Bioscience Students at Coventry (N=59 returned: 58 1st Year & 1 2nd Year) and Liverpool Hope Universities (N=39 returned: 20 1st Year & 19 3rd Year)

Strathclyde + Coventry & Liverpool Hope - 1

Bioscience Student Respondents from the Three Universities

Count

66 17 3 86

36 23 0 59

25 14 0 39

127 54 3 184

Strath

Cov

L'Hope

Total

F M X

gender

Total

Strathclyde, Coventry & Liverpool Hope - 2

Bioscience Students Reporting Difficulties with Maths

Count

31 10 1 42

31 20 0 51

10 4 0 14

72 34 1 107

Strath

Cov

L'Hope

Total

F M X

gender

Total

Strathclyde, Coventry & Liverpool Hope -3 Combined dataset (N=170, with no missing data):

67% of those reporting difficulties were female Backward logistic regression revealed that lack of

confidence with algebraic functions significantly discriminated 77% of those reporting problems and 58% of those reporting no mathematical difficulties

Odds are 4.5:1 that a student reporting maths problems will have problems with algebraic functions

Coventry & L’Hope dataset (N=89, with no missing data): Moles & Molarity only significant predictor (p <0.05)

Differences between institutions…

B. Development of BCalc

Aug 2002 The first version of BCalc was written and installed on an HP Jornada

Oct 2002 Application to the university’s Research & Development Fund for support to enhance BCalc

Dec 2002 Funding obtained and BCalc was adapted to run on PCs and Palm OS systems

BCalc Demonstration

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Evaluation

Scientific notation in ‘unusual’ format eg 5 x 10-2 vs 5.000e-002

Add / remove some details

Confident with paper conversion tables

More ‘step by step’ help Need for early identification and training

Future Directions for Research

To improve the user-interface of our pilot software support system and further assess its value to students with MD/Dyscalculia

To develop a family of support systems appropriate to different disciplines

To identify features and requirements for a help and tutoring system that will accompany the support software