The decision to undertake undergraduate studies as a mature student poses challenges, especially when service mathematics is part of the programme of study, giving rise to mathematics anxiety. Mathematics anxiety comprises negative feelings pertaining to a person's engagement with mathematics. While much research into mathematics anxiety…

Assessment is an issue that is central to the lives of educators and students alike. At all levels, from programmatic to course-specific, instructors strive to assess in a way that accurately measures achievement or progress relative to one's goals. This paper reports on students' experiences with alternative assessments in our undergraduate…

We investigated understanding of the linear independence concept based on the type and nature of connections displayed in seven non-mathematics majors' interview responses to a set of open-ended questions. Through a qualitative analysis, we identified six categories of frequently displayed connections. There were also recognizable differences in…

This study embarks on the question in the title with the construct of epistemological status, which pertains to the solver's satisfaction with the way and the degree to which their solution had fulfilled their intellectual and psychological needs in a particular problem situation. The construct is used to hypothesize that a solver's decision to…

Along with a growing body of evidence of the challenges experienced by specialist and more-able mathematics students during their undergraduate studies, there now exists evidence that these students are increasingly accessing mathematics support centres as a means of enhancing their mathematical learning experience. Here, we report on a survey of…

Past research has investigated students' epistemologies while they were taking courses that required an integrated understanding of mathematical and scientific concepts. However, past studies have not investigated students who are not currently enrolled in such classes. Additionally, past studies have primarily focused on individuals who are…

I lay a new theoretical framework across my own lecturing in order to understand what is happening. On the one hand, this is a test of the framework. On the other, I gain insights into both better practices and better course design. The framework constructs undergraduate teaching as the interaction between the discipline and the university…

In this article we focus on university lecturers' approaches to the service teaching and factors that influence their approaches. We present data obtained from the interviews with 19 mathematics and three physics lecturers along with the observations of two mathematics lecturers' calculus courses. The findings show that lecturers' approaches to…

Reports on the main results of an instructional study aimed at improving the mathematics performance of a group of university biology students who repeatedly failed the final examination of a compulsory course in mathematics. Results indicate that the main difficulties of these students seemed to be metacognitive and affective in nature. Concludes…

Describes a Total Quality Management-based system of instruction that is used in a variety of undergraduate mathematics courses. The courses that incorporate this approach include mathematics appreciation, introductory calculus, and advanced applied linear algebra. (DDR)