Engineers find students weak in mathematics

The majority of engineering lecturers surveyed by the Engineering Council believe that the mathematical competence of first-year engineering students is significantly weaker today than it was ten years ago.

In a study published today the council says that 83 per cent of the lecturers expressed "considerable concern" about students' algebra. Other weaknesses highlighted include trigonometry and calculus.

The study covered four universities including a Scottish institution and university whose student intake has an exceptionally high-scoring academic background. The research was carried out by Rosamund Sutherland and Stefano Pozzi of the University of London Institute of Education and entailed detailed interviews with engineering and mathematics lecturers.

The report says that the increase in the number of students entering higher education means that a wider range of students is being accepted on to engineering degree courses. Save relatively low mathematics qualifications compared to ten years ago. More than half the lecturers surveyed maintained that the weak mathematical background of their engineering students was undermining the quality of their engineering degrees.

Engineering departments are also under pressure to accept students with lower entrance qualifications because of the twin pressures of reduced popularity of mathematics and science at A level and increasing proportion of school-leavers entering university.

Weakness in mathematics can be partly attributed to factors such as lowering of A-level requirements. But this does not explain why, in the university with the highest academic standards among those surveyed, students with a grade A in A-level mathematics are said to be less fluent in a range of mathematical methods and skills, say the authors.

In examining pre-university mathematics, the researchers found a decreasing emphasis on topics, including algebra and trigonometry, which are considered essential for engineering mathematics.

The report says that school mathematics has moved away from emphasising the more analytic and abstract aspects of the subject towards emphasising the way in which mathematics relates to problems in everyday life. This is often accompanied by greater emphasis on "trial and error" methods of solution. Students also "clearly find the jump from GCSE to A level very difficult".

The Changing Mathematical Background of Undergraduate Engineers, free from the Engineering Council, 10 Maltravers Street, London WC2R 3ER. SAE with 45p stamp.