This study focuses on the mathematics department at a South African university and in particular on teaching of calculus to first year engineering students. The paper reports on a cause-effect analysis, often used for business improvement. The cause-effect analysis indicates that there are many factors that impact on secondary school teaching of…

This paper reports on a study about how the mathematics textbook was perceived and used by the teacher in the context of a calculus part of a basic mathematics course for first-year engineering students. The focus was on the teacher's choices and the use of definitions, examples and exercises in a sequence of lectures introducing the derivative…

Lecturers of first-year mathematics often have reason to believe that students enter university studies with naïve conceptions of mathematics and that more mature conceptions need to be developed in the classroom. Students' conceptions of the nature and role of mathematics in current and future studies as well as future career are pedagogically…