TransMaths - key research findings

Transition is a challenge not only for pupils and students moving from one stage of education to the next, but also for teachers, tutors and lecturers. Teachers and lecturers need to develop practices that support students both before and during transition. The problems arise when mathematics is constituted in different ways to those that are familiar to the pupils/students. This may be because mathematics is taught in a ‘different way’ in the various phases but also because mathematics can be taught as a topic in its own right as well as being taught to support learning in diverse subject areas.

Three ESRC-funded research projects (2006 to 2010), which are now grouped under the single heading of “TransMaths”, explored transition using large-scale surveys and by interviewing teachers and learners in various contexts from compulsory school, through college and into Higher Education. The key findings of the research include:

  • Many teachers in colleges and universities perceive transition to be a ‘problem’, involving some learners in early disengagement. The new ‘rules of the game’ of learning at the new institution can be problematic for many students. Furthermore, there is a special problem with mathematics in transition: the motivation to study the subject can be unclear (particularly at university) and may involve alienation, even disengagement.
  • The transitional links between school and college and college and university systems are structured as a market place where certificates such as GCSE and A-level/BTEC provide ‘exchange’ value as access to college or university rather than provide information/learning that is necessarily useful.
  • Students’ experience at GCSE and A-level does not prepare them well for ‘learning to learn’, e.g. how to autonomously manage the many resources available to them to learn; at university this subject is addressed sporadically in 1st year but it is normally not well integrated into the students’ core courses. Ironically, many students aspire for a more “mature”, grown-up way of learning after the transition but are not prepared or supported for this.
  • Particularly at university, students’ experience at A-level does not fit well with uses of mathematics in degree courses e.g. in other STEM subjects (modelling, use of technology) or even in mathematics (rigour and proof). The same can be said for the GCSE experience where mathematics is disconnected from authentic applications to other subjects.
  • University academe may not see teaching (or responsiveness to students’ learning) as its core business or identity: as a result their development of knowledge and know-how in teaching can sometimes be rudimentary, and the development of a ‘pedagogical culture’ can therefore be under-valued (e.g. ‘teachers’ may be marginalised in HE).
  • Productive/effective ‘transitional practices’ involved student-centred or student-led activity whereby the students’ own mathematics became focal and teaching became more responsive and dialogical.
  • Apparent efficiencies of teaching scale (e.g. transmission in large classrooms/lectures) can lack responsiveness to the diversity of student needs and learners’ capacity to ‘connect’: squaring this circle requires imaginative management and the fostering of a pedagogic culture.

More detailed information about the research is available at www.transmaths.org in the form of: research briefings (Into College, Through College, Into University, Transitional Gaps, Learning to Learn, Modelling and Applications, Teacher Identity and Engineering); publications (journal articles and working papers); the presentations from the Transition and Mathematics Education Conference (2 March 2012); the end of award reports; “think pieces” addressing the major issues uncovered by the research; and interactive teacher and student surveys.



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