Common Mathematical Errors Made by First-Year Students

Abstract

Participants of the investigation – 124 students from the Faculty of Economics and Management and 115 students from the Faculty of Agronomy all of whom have entered the university in 2013. The investigation is based on the methods of statistical and graphical analysis and the data has been processed using the STATISTICA software package. Moreover, a qualitative analysis of tasks’ solving has been also carried out. Having compared the results in 2011 and 2013 it is clear that the Mathematical knowledge of students of the Faculty of Agronomy has improved. The comparison shows that statistically the number of correct answers in both faculties was quite similar in 2011. However, the difference in 2013 is really significant. The qualitative analysis shows that first-year students lack the skills of rearrangement of algebraic expression. These skills are necessary for the rearrangement of expressions not only in the studies of Mathematics, but also Physics, Chemistry and Economics. However, the additional school Mathematics rehearsal courses are not very popular among the students. What is more, these courses are not very effective because of some reasons. These are: students’ different level of knowledge, the problems of inability to work individually or to adapt to the common pace of work. Due to the advanced e-learning solutions it is purposeful to create a means of additional teaching and learning that could be supplemented with video material and self-check tests. Furthermore, the investigation revealed, that the answer variants of some tasks were formulated incorrectly and that students’ choice did not reveal the nature of their mistakes. Thus, it is relevant that the test should be corrected and specified. The testing of Mathematical knowledge of first-year students at the beginning of a new school year is quite common in most of universities. It is understood that it aims at identifying the areas that are complicated for the majority of students. The testing of this kind has been carried out since 2000 at Aleksandras Stulginskis University. However, a further analysis on it is not being made due to the short period between the testing and the beginning of lectures or practice. It is only confined to the determination of the number of correct answers. According to the results, students are provided with recommendations regarding the necessity of additional learning. Many years of observation show that, traditionally first-year students have difficulties with solving the tasks related to trigonometric expressions, calculation of percentage and roots. It can be stated that the determination of the number of correct answers is becoming less informative, thus a more detailed qualitative analysis is necessary. This would enable the lecturers to identify the typical errors and to prepare the teaching tools that would satisfy the students’ needs. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the first-year students’ Mathematical preparedness in the beginning of their studies at the university.