Supporting Bioscience Students with Mathematical Difficulties in Higher Education: DDIG Conference Loughborough University 13 April, 2005

1
Supporting Bioscience Students with Mathematical
Difficulties in Higher Education DDIG
Conference Loughborough University 13 April,
2005

• C Spickett, J Boyle J Wilson
• University of Strathclyde
• j.boyle_at_strath.ac.uk

2
(No Transcript)
3
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
  persons 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

4
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)

5
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

6
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

7
Whats 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

8
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

9
Primary Aims

• To explore the prevalence and nature of
  mathematical difficulties experienced by
  Bioscience students
• To develop an IT-based intervention, BCalc, to
  support Bioscience students experiencing problems
  with mathematics, including those with
  dyscalculia

10
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

11
Sample Bioscience Exam Question
0.1 ml
1 ml
1 ml
1 ml
1 ml
9.9 ml
9.0 ml
9.0 ml
9.0 ml
9.0 ml
E coli culture
2
3
1
4
5

1. 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
2. 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

12
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

13
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), SD1.80
• Lower-bound prevalence rate of mathematical
  difficulties of at least 10 amongst 1st and 2nd
  year Bioscience students

14
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, plt 0.05)
• Logarithms (X2 6.62, p lt 0.01)
• 76 of those reporting difficulties were female
  links with mathematics anxiety? (Ashcraft, Kirk
  Hopkins, 1998 Woodard, 2004)
• Backward logistic regression for N81 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 41 that a student reporting
  maths problems will have problems with algebraic
  functions

15
Coventry Liverpool Hope Universities

• Strathclyde Questionnaire administered to
  Bioscience Students at Coventry (N59 returned
  58 1st Year 1 2nd Year) and Liverpool Hope
  Universities (N39 returned 20 1st Year 19 3rd
  Year)

16
Strathclyde Coventry Liverpool Hope - 1
17
Strathclyde, Coventry Liverpool Hope - 2
18
Strathclyde, Coventry Liverpool Hope -3

• Combined dataset (N170, 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 4.51 that a student reporting maths
  problems will have problems with algebraic
  functions
• Coventry LHope dataset (N89, with no missing
  data) Moles Molarity only significant
  predictor (p lt0.05)
• Differences between institutions

19
B. Development of BCalc

• Aug 2002 The first version of BCalc was written
  and installed on an HP Jornada
• Oct 2002 Application to the universitys Research
  Development Fund for support to enhance
  BCalc
• Dec 2002 Funding obtained and BCalc was adapted
  to run on PCs and Palm OS systems

20
BCalc Demonstration
21
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
22
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
23
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
24
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
25
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
26
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
27
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
28
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
29
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
30
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
31
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
32
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
33
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
34
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
35
BCalc Demonstration (cont.)
36
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

37
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