It is well documented that students are struggling in developmental and introductory mathematics courses at community colleges across the nation. However, the reasons that these students struggle are not as well known. While numerous researchers have investigated the effects of inquiry-based learning on K-12 students, the research on this topic at the community college level is lacking. For my dissertation work, I have collected attitudinal surveys, observational data, and final exams from eight sections of a developmental mathematics course and nine sections of College Algebra at a large Texas community college. Approximately half of the instructors involved in the study incorporated some level of inquiry-based teaching strategies in their classrooms (referred to in this dissertation as “student-led” sections) while the remaining instructors employed a more direct strategy (referred to as “lecture” sections). Using this data, I investigated the relationships between teaching methods and attitudes, teaching methods and content knowledge, and attitudes and content knowledge. The evidence showed that IBL teaching strategies have a greater effect on students’ attitudes for students enrolled in a developmental mathematics course than those enrolled in College Algebra. IBL teaching strategies had no positive effects on developmental students’ performance on a skills-based final exam, but student-led sections performed just as well as lecture sections. In College Algebra, participants in student-led sections scored significantly higher than lecture sections on two out of five objectives: write the equation of a line in slope-intercept form (p<0.001) and use properties of logarithms to write an expression as a single logarithm (p<0.01). Lecture sections scored significantly higher than student-led sections on one objective: write the equation of an exponential function given two data points (p<0.05). However, the wording of the problems for this objective differed between lecture and student-led sections. Finally, when comparing the eight Basic Math Skills objectives with the 17 attitudinal variables, 1.4% of pairs were significantly correlated on the pre-survey and 15.4% of pairs were significantly correlated on the post-survey. Of the five College Algebra objectives and 17 attitudinal variables, 16.5% of pairs were significantly correlated on the pre-survey and 7.1% of pairs were significantly correlated on the post-survey. / text

Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 2002. / Title from title page screen, viewed November 29, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Thomas Shilgalis (chair), Kenneth Berk, Patricia Klass, Beverly Rich, Charles Vanden Eynden. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-61) and abstract. Also available in print.

The purpose of this study was to develop a model to predict the college mathematics courses a freshman could expect to pass by considering their high school mathematics preparation. The high school information that was used consisted of the student's sex, the student's grade point average in mathematics, the highest level of high school mathematics courses taken, and the number of mathematics courses taken in high school. The high school sample was drawn from graduated Seniors in the State of Utah for 1979. The college sample was drawn from the fall semester 1980 at Utah State University, Weber State College, University of Utah, Westminster College, and Brigham Young University. The model was developed using ACT Scores as the dependent variable with the high school data in one equation and the college data in another equation and then predicting from high school to college using the ACT Scores as the bridge. The results showed that those students that had courses in the higher levels of mathematics in high school, were significantly more successful! in college mathematics. The level of mathematics was more significant than the grades received in mathematics. Females who had had higher levels of mathematics in high school were as successful! as males on that level.

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The purposes of this study were (1) to compare the achievement levels of students enrolled in a beginning college mathematics course when taught by (a) closed-circuit television followed by student-assisted study periods, (b) closed circuit television followed by access to videotape replay with no supervised study periods, (c) closed-circuit television followed by unsupervised study and discussion, and (d) regular lecture-recitation methods conducted by the television instructor, and (2) to ascertain the students' attitudes toward their instructor, course, and method of instruction.

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This research effort compared student learning gains and attitudinal changes through the implementation of two varying instructional approaches on the topic of functions in College Algebra. Attitudinal changes were measured based on the Attitude Towards Mathematics Inventory (ATMI). The ATMI also provided four sub-scales scores for self-confidence, value of learning, enjoyment, and motivation. Furthermore, this research explored and compared relationships between students' level of mastery and their actual level of learning. This study implemented a quasi-experimental research design using a sample that consisted of 56 College Algebra students in a public, state college in Florida. The sample was enrolled in one of two College Algebra sections, in which one section followed a self-adaptive instructional approach using ALEKS (Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Space) and the other section followed a traditional approach using MyMathLab. Learning gains in each class were measured as the difference between the pre-test and post-test scores on the topic of functions in College Algebra. Attitude changes in each class were measured as the difference between the holistic scores on the ATMI, as well as each of the four sub-scale scores, which was administered once in the beginning of the semester and again after the unit of functions, approximately eight weeks into the course. Utilizing an independent t-test, results indicated that there was not a significant difference in actual learning gains for the compared instructional approaches. Additionally, independent t-test results indicated that there was not a statistical difference for attitude change holistically and on each of the four sub-scales for the compared instructional approaches. However, correlational analyses revealed a strong relationship between students' level of mastery learning and their actual learning level for each class with the self-adaptive instructional approach having a stronger correlation than the non-adaptive section, as measured by an r-to-z Fisher transformation test. The results of this study indicate that the self-adaptive instructional approach using ALEKS could more accurately report students' true level of learning compared to a non-adaptive instructional approach. Overall, this study found the compared instructional approaches to be equivalent in terms of learning and effect on students' attitude. While not statistically different, the results of this study have implications for math educators, instructional designers, and software developers. For example, a non-adaptive instructional approach can be equivalent to a self-adaptive instructional approach in terms of learning with appropriate planning and design. Future recommendations include further case studies of self-adaptive technology in developmental and college mathematics in other modalities such as hybrid or on-line courses. Also, this study should be replicated on a larger scale with other self-adaptive math software in addition to focusing on other student populations, such as K - 12. There is much potential for intelligent tutoring to supplement different instructional approaches, but should not be viewed as a replacement for teacher-to-student interactions.

This is a qualitative research that draws on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis methodology to analyze the discourse practices of the mathematics teacher educators in initial teacher training colleges in Malawi. The study involved four mathematics teacher educators in two teacher training colleges located in two different regions of Malawi. Specifically the study explored the following questions: 1) What are the discourse practices that mathematics teacher educators display in their descriptions of multilingual mathematics classrooms? 2) a) What are the discourse practices that mathematics teacher educators display in a college mathematics classroom? b) How do they make available the discourse practices for the student teachers to draw on? Data was collected through pre-observation interviews, classroom observations, reflective interviews and focus group discussions with the mathematics teacher educators. This study has shown that while there are some disconnections between the discourse practices produced in a school multilingual mathematics classroom and a college mathematics classroom, some of the discourse practices that mathematics teachers produced in a college mathematics classroom reinforces the common discourse practices being produced in multilingual mathematics classroom. There are three common discourse practices that were displayed in a college mathematics classroom. These discourse practices are: Initial-Response-Evaluation (Pimm, 1987), traditional lecturing and group discussions. I observed that the IRE and traditional lecturing discourse practices were accompanied by directive discourses for procedural control, and the procedural discourse was the prevalent discourse in all the discourse practices produced. iv Three major themes have emerged from the data analysis. Firstly, the research findings indicate that the mathematics teacher educators regard multilingualism and the language practices that come with it such as code-switching more as a problem rather than a resource for teaching and learning. Secondly, code-switching in college mathematics classroom is not as spontaneous as is research shows it to be in schools; rather it is very much controlled and restricted. Thirdly, the dilemmas of code-switching as discussed by Adler (1998, 2001) are more acute in teacher training colleges, mainly because of the mismatch in the Language-in-Education Policy (LiEP) in schools and tertiary level.

The purpose of the study is to find answers to the following questions. 1. Is there a significant difference in any of the three simple pair-wise comparisons of the attitudes of the three groups of mathematics instructors of college preparatory courses toward teaching those courses? 2. Is there a significant difference in any of the three simple pair-wise comparisons of the attitudes of the three groups of mathematics instructors of college preparatory courses toward the MAA-NCTM recommendations? 3. Is there a significant correlation between the attitudes toward the MAA-NCTM recommendations and the attitudes toward teaching the college preparatory mathematics courses held by the mathematics instructors in each of the three groups? The data led to the conclusion that all three groups held the same favorable attitude toward teaching college preparatory mathematics courses. Also, there were no significant differences among the three groups' attitudes toward the MAA-NCTM recommendations. However, while no significant correlation was found for the high school instructors, there did exist a significant positive correlation between the two attitudes for each of the other two groups studied.