engleski

Approaches to learning mathematics in engineering study program

The students’ approaches to learning have been significantly researched in the last few decades, particularly since Marton and S¨alj¨o in 1979. elaborated about a deep/surface approach dichotomy. The above dichotomy appears to be very useful in the assessing of teaching, based on which one can obtain parameters according to which teaching can be improved. Precisely for these purposes the term approach to learning is more suitable than the term learning style. Learning style addresses ability-like dimensions while the term approach means that person can choose to learn in different ways depending on his/her motivation, the nature of the course taken and subject-matter, as well as the host of other variables. We use The Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST), developed by N.J. Entwistle, to investigate learning approaches of the first-year undergraduate engineering students in compulsory mathematics course. We emphasize that this inventory considers an additional type of approach, the strategic one. Inventory exploredwhich of three approaches to learning (deep, strategic or surface) was chosen the most to cope with demands of the specific mathematics course, and how the chosen approach relates to the students’ grades obtained in the course. The results showed that majority choose strategic approach, what might indicate that it was the nature of the mathematics course that resulted in this approach. Also, in this paper we discuss the potential main factors that could result in such a selection.

approaches to learning, deep, surface, strategic

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