Transcript An analysis of at-risk students` lack of engagement with mathematics

An analysis of at-risk students’
lack of engagement with
mathematics support
A case study of first year students at
the National University of Ireland
Maynooth.
Martin Grehan
Motivation for this study
 A previous statistical analysis showed that students who
engaged with support were more likely to succeed than
those who did not. A large proportion of 'at-risk'
students did not avail of mathematics support.
 Aimed to discover real reasons for students not
engaging.
 Contacted all 39 repeating 1st year students.
 13 responses, 10 completed questionnaires and 7
interviewed.
Supports Offered
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Lectures
Weekly tutorials
Weekly assignments
Maths Support Centre (MSC)
 Drop in centre:
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07-08: 273 registered, 2493 visits
08-09: 509 registered, 4647 visits
09-10: 570 registered, 5475 visits so far
Note: c.5800 undergrads (08/09) of which 950
studied maths.
Interviews
 Semi-Structured
 Sections:
 Experience of maths, pre-university and
1st year of college.
 Lectures
 Tutorials
 Assignments
 MSC
 General/Summary
Grounded Theory
 Developed by Glaser & Strauss, both
sociologists.
 Data collection ahead of a hypothesis.
 Method:
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Codes/Notes
Concepts
Categories
Theory
Preliminary Findings
 Completed codes/notes and concepts
phase.
 Several themes beginning to emerge
including:
 Fear
 Lack of understanding/awareness
 Lack of motivation/discipline
Example of constructing a “Category”
“FEAR”
Fear of failure
Fear of the unknown
Fear of showing lack of
knowledge/ability
Fear of being singled out
Breakdown of “Fear” category: Fear
of failure

This manifests itself mainly as a fear of facing your own
shortcomings and a fear of your own emotional reactions to
failure.
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“Cause if it’s handed back and I see an F beside it and I didn’t
wanna see that F” (student FFF1 discussing assignments)
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“I think I was kind of hoping for some miracle, I dunno, em, I
just kind of pushed it to the side, and I kinda enjoyed the
other subjects. I just did them” (student FFF2 discussing
maths in general)

Found them difficult and they'd just kind of run you down
about the subject as well cause you were feeling, you were
(not) getting marks from them, you were just doing poorly.
Em, and coming up to exams and stuff like that it didn't feel
great. (student MSF2 discussing assignments)
Fear of showing lack of knowledge
or ability
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This shows up as embarrassment and a reluctance to ask questions or
fear of being wrong (see Ryan, Pintrich and Midgley 2001).
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When asked by the interviewer would they ask a question in lectures,
student FFF1 responded:
“Never! I did in one, in accounting, but that’s because I was comfortable
with it and I knew what I was talking about and I corrected the lecturer and
I asked a question. So, I was comfortable with that.”

“I was actually really embarrassed and intimidated about going and saying
listen guys I struggle horribly with maths.” (student MSF1 discussing the
MSC)
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Cause I wasn't going to lectures, when I was doing my homework I didn't
have a clue so I was just like “I cant go to a tutorial cause I wont know how
to do....”, you know that sort of way? (student FFF2)
Fear of being singled out
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Many of the students seemed to want to stay out of the
limelight at all costs.
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You know that they ask you questions and you’re like “I haven’t a
clue” and everyone is looking at you and like “Why don’t you
know?”. (student FFF1 commenting on tutorials
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“If you hand in a bad homework the lecturer (tutor) can focus a lot
more on you and you know it will make you feel, not stupid but if
you hand in a bad homework, this is me personally, I'd be less
inclined to go to the tutorial.” (student MSF3 commenting on
tutorials)
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“I mean in such large groups it's hard to ask questions cause
there's just so many people around. … It's just, it can be, I mean
you don’t want to say something stupid in front of 200, 250
people.” (student MSF2 commenting on lectures)
Fear of the unknown
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Students are unsure and unaware of many of the supports
available to them.
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Then second semester I went to the door, looked in and it
was really, really busy and I just thought “hmmm, no!”.
And I turned around. (student FFF1 on the MSC)
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“You know, kinda nervous to go off somewhere you didn't
understand…And you just kind of felt embarrassed about
not knowing how everything was working.” (student MSF2
on the MSC)
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“I think it’s the initial, once you go the first time its gra(nd)
…it’s going the first time I’d say.” (student FFF2 on the
MSC)
The Future
 Already intervening as a result of
preliminary findings.
 Finish developing theory/theories
from interviews already done.
 Currently interviewing students who
did avail of maths support.
 Compare and contrast.
Questions?
 [email protected]
 http://supportcentre.maths.nuim.ie/