Adaptive Individual Differences in Math Courses

Abstract

A higher education that can be defined as sustainable ensures the acquisition of competencies that are necessary to address the current and future needs of the society in which it exists. Because math competencies are an essential component of college students’ academic and professional success, poor performance outcomes are particularly problematic in the context of an education that aims to be sustainable. This research sought to identify dispositions that are predictive of math performance in the post-pandemic world to develop an early detection system for at-risk students of an understudied population (college students of Middle Eastern descent from Saudi Arabia). It specifically targeted female and male students in STEM or non-STEM majors who were enrolled in a math course of the general education curriculum. During the second semester of a return to entirely face-to-face instruction, their self-efficacy, math learning anxiety, math evaluation anxiety, and preference for morning or evening study activities were surveyed. In the post-pandemic world of this understudied population, the math performance of STEM male and female students was hurt by concerns about learning math. The math performance of non-STEM male students benefited from self-efficacy, whereas that of non-STEM female students was unaffected by any of the dispositions surveyed in the present investigation. These findings suggest that individual difference measures can inform early interventions intended to address performance deficiencies in selected groups of students with the overreaching goal of ensuring a sustainable education for all.

The Learning of Mathematics Based on Individual Differences : A Topic Trend Bibliometric Analysis Using VOSviewer

“…The newest article in 2022 with the keyword 'mathematics' entitled Adaptive Individual in Math Courses in the journal Sustainability talked about the anxiety of learning mathematics students in Saudi Arabia are divided into two classes: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and non-STEM at the pandemic Covid-19. The results are: (1) anxiety toward mathematics tests is higher in male students compared to female students, and for the non-STEM, the anxiety does not influence the result of evaluation; (3) On self-efficacy, there is no difference among groups, but the best result comes from Non-STEM male students (Pilotti et al, 2022). From keywords 'mathematical concepts' and 'mathematical phenomena' have the same focus, it is an article entitled 'Linking inhibitory control to math achievement via comparison of conflicting decimal numbers' in the journal Cognition.…”

Sustainable Development in Action: A Retrospective Case Study on Students’ Learning Before, During, and After the Pandemic

“…In fact, at some universities, a number of courses and programs may be either still online or offered in a hybrid mode (i.e., partly online and face-to-face; [53]), thereby challenging clear-cut comparisons between face-to-face learning before and after the pandemic. The few studies that have examined performance in the post-pandemic environment have either limited their focus to the post-pandemic environment [54,55] or reasoned on the lessons learned from online instructions (during the pandemic) as a means of enhancing student success in face-to-face classes after the pandemic in particular courses or subject matters [56][57][58].…”