High school students' perceptions on the relevance of mathematics in higher education
Conference contribution (Article) › Research › Peer reviewed
Publication data
| By | Dunja Rohenroth, Irene Neumann, Aiso Heinze |
| Original language | English |
| Published in | Michal Ayalon, Boris Koichu, Roza Leikin, Laurie Rubel, Michal Tabach (Eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (vol. 4) |
| Pages | 107-114 |
| Editor (Publisher) | PME |
| ISBN | 978-965-93112-1-7 |
| DOI/Link | https://www.igpme.org/publications/current-proceedings/ |
| Publication status | Published – 07.2023 |
Mathematics plays a central role in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and also in a large number of other subjects. However, many students start their university studies with inadequate expectations regarding the needed mathematics. The present paper reports on a study investigating N=984 German high school students’ perceptions of the relevance of mathematics for university studies by contrasting the subjects economics, education, medicine, and physics. Both, students’ perception of the relevance of mathematics in general as well as of specific required mathematical aspects were assessed for the different subjects. The results indicate that many high school students underestimate the relevance of mathematics, especially in education studies.
