Students' motivational beliefs about physics can influence their learning outcomes as well as retention in their majors and career choices. Moreover, due to societal stereotypes and biases about who belongs in physics and can succeed in physics, women often have lower motivational beliefs about physics than men. The expectancy-value theory…

Gateway testing is an important pedagogic tool employed by many university mathematics departments in calculus and precalculus courses. With a goal of ensuring that students attain needed basic skills in courses with a conceptual "reform" orientation, these tests provide an efficient means of assessing a large volume of student work,…

This report explores college-bound students' awareness of the range of math courses available, how those students make decisions regarding high school math course enrollment, and the implications of those choices for college admissions. Its focus is on students who are historically underrepresented in higher education, particularly Black and…

The need to incorporate active learning (AL) in higher education has become a prominent issue discussed by major leadership organizations such as the Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences (CBMS, 2016). These calls for AL are based on a large and growing body of research documenting the correlation between AL use and reduced failure rates,…

Investigations into attrition of STEM-intending students indicate that poor experiences in introductory courses are at least partly to blame, specifically the students' frustration with lecture-driven teaching methods. In this research, hierarchical linear modeling is used to identify the individual and situational characteristics of instructors…

Sketching the graph of mathematical functions using derivatives is a challenging task for undergraduate students who enrol for the first level of calculus course. Before graph plotting, students are required to perform a thorough function analysis using the concepts learned in differentiation. They are then expected to solicit the results obtained…

The Calculus for Kids project was deliberately designed to use computers in the transformation of curriculum. The intervention used multi-media learning materials to assist teachers and Year 6 (aged 11-12 years) students understand the principles of integral calculus. They used Maple mathematics software to solve real-world problems using these…

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in using virtual reality (VR) technology to benefit instruction, especially in physics and related subjects. As VR devices improve and become more widely available, there remains a number of unanswered questions regarding the impact of VR on student learning and how best to use this technology in the…

This study sets for itself the task of constructing a learning trajectory for the fundamental theorem of calculus (FTC) that takes into account the interaction with an educational digital tool. Students were asked to explain the connections between interactive and multiple-linked representations in an educational digital tool, and to conjecture…

The purpose of this paper is to explain a newly implemented interactive delivery model for students at the Colorado School of Mines (Mines) repeating Calculus for Scientists & Engineers I during the spring of 2017. Since calculus is a necessary component for so many STEM degrees, it will continue to be a gateway to obtaining such degrees and…

When establishing connections among representations of associated mathematical concepts, students encounter different difficulties and successes along the way. The purpose of this study was to uncover information about and gain greater insight into how student processes connections. Pre-calculus students were observed and interviewed while…

In this contribution, we show the practical use of the computer to visualise simple computational simulations to show phenomena that occur in everyday life, or require an abstract understanding for being unintuitive phenomena. The relationship of the mathematics to different scientific disciplines motivates us to devise different treatments to…

Several studies have explored students' understanding of the relationships between definite integrals and areas under curve(s). So far, however, there has been less attention to students' understanding of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus (FTC). In addition, students' metacognitive experiences and skills whilst solving FTC questions have not…

Students' difficulties with proof, scholars' calls for proof to be a consistent part of K-12 mathematics, and the extensive use of textbooks in mathematics classrooms motivate investigations on how proof-related items are addressed in mathematics textbooks. We contribute to textbook research by focusing on opportunities to learn proof-related…

This paper describes a simple experiment that lets first-year physics and engineering students discover an important physical property of a Slinky. The restoring force for the fundamental oscillation frequency is provided only by those coils between the support and the Slinky center of mass.