PROCEEDINGS OF THE 23RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2020
Boston, Massachusetts
Singular and combined effects of learning approaches, self-efficacy and prior knowledge on university students’ performance in mathematics
Page: 1003
This article describes a quantitative research project with the sole aim of exploring the factors affecting learning outcomes of students in higher education mathematics. The chosen factors are mainly from students’ personal constructs which are approaches to learning, self-efficacy and prior knowledge. Results of analysed two sets of data consisting of 234 engineering and economics students as well as 253 engineering students that offered a first-year mathematics course are reported. The preliminary findings established a differential classification of the students’ approaches to learning into deep and surface. It has also exposed the relationship between calculus self-efficacy and approaches to learning with higher self-efficacy students identified with deep approaches and lower self-efficacy students identified with surface approaches.