Dublin Institute of Technology offers students a number of different routes into engineering, allowing many non-standard entrants the opportunity to study the discipline provided they fulfil certain criteria. The final aim of many of these students is to achieve an Honours Degree in Engineering, which takes a minimum of 4 years. Apart from the…

A study was conducted at the Technical University Berlin involving students who twice failed the written examination in the first semester course Linear Algebra for Engineers in order to better understand the reasons behind their failure. The study considered student understanding in terms of Bloom's taxonomy and the ways in which students…

Competency has been the buzzword of higher education for at least a decade. The reasonable approach of describing what students should be able to do after completing coursework, however, falls short of the fact that mathematics, like any subject matter, contains inherent difficulties for students. Students usually need assistance in overcoming…

Based on the results of a survey of the science and mathematics students at our university, we observed that students do not consider mathematics and science to be creative endeavors, though the traditional artistic disciplines rank high in this regard. To address this problem in perception, the authors used photography as a means to encourage…

Engineering Students Understanding Mathematics (ESUM) is a developmental research project at a UK university. The motivating aim is that engineering students should develop a more conceptual understanding of mathematics through their participation in an innovation in teaching. A small research team has both studied and contributed to innovation,…

With the London 2012 Olympics coming up, now is a good time for teachers to turn to track and field athletics for an application that has the potential to be intrinsically interesting to many pupils in schools new undergraduates. In this article, curves, well-known amongst former generations of pupils, are revisited by looking at the markings on…

Much research and many papers on mathematics pedagogy have discussed assessment and, in particular, the need to provide a varied diet of methods by which students are assessed for the award of their degree. In this article, we explore the mix of assessment methods provided across a range of UK university mathematics departments. We examine the…

Trigonometry is one of the topics in mathematics that the students in both high school and pre-undergraduate levels need to learn. Generally, the topic covers trigonometric functions, trigonometric equations, trigonometric identities and solving oblique triangles using the Laws of Sines and Cosines. However, when solving the oblique triangles,…

Over the last decade the "mathematics problem" (students lacking basic mathematical skills on entry into higher education), and proposed solutions of this problem have been widely debated. One method to help combat this issue has been the introduction of mathematics support centres across higher education institutions. This article describes the…

In this article, we use a particular example to illustrate a thematic approach to the teaching and learning of mathematics. Our theme, suitable for undergraduates and able sixth-form students, is the enumeration of mathematical objects associated with the prime factorizations of integers. It is shown in detail how this gives rise to some beautiful…

In July 2009, an e-mail survey was sent to various UK universities to gain information regarding current practices concerning mathematics diagnostic testing, and to provide an update from the review "Diagnostic Testing for Mathematics" published by the LTSN MathsTEAM Project in 2003. A total of 38 university departments were contacted and the…

This article reports on the mathematical competency of students entering third-level education in the University of Limerick (UL). Data from diagnostic testing, gathered on 5,949 students between the years 1998 and 2008, are used to demonstrate the changes in competency levels of students entering UL. There has been a significant decline in the…

Research was conducted into first year engineering students' learning of mathematics in a university college during 2005-2007. The aims were to understand better students' confidences and explore which factors affected performance and how these were inter-related. Questionnaires were administered which posed questions regarding previous…

This article reports on a quantitative study carried out into the influence of affective variables, the role of conceptions of mathematics and approaches to learning on students in the transition to Service mathematics at the University of Limerick (UL). Questionnaires were distributed to three groups of first year students on Service mathematics…

Recommends a change in the way mathematics is taught to engineers and scientists. Espouses a shift away from traditional methods to an approach that makes significant use of algebra packages. Suggests that teaching the language comprised of the notation and grammar of mathematics would be of more use and more accessible than focusing entirely on…