Clash of cultures? Exploring students’ perceptions of differences between secondary and tertiary mathematics education

Research has identified several aspects that influence students’ transition to mathematics studies at university, but these aspects have often been studied separately. Our study contributes to the field's understanding of the transition between upper secondary and university mathematics by taking a multifaceted perspective not previously explored. We analyse experiences and attainment in mathematics of 154 engineering students with respect to known aspects of this transition, and our results show that it is important to consider several aspects together in order to understand the full complexity of the transition. It is revealed that students with previous experiences of university studies, when compared with new first year undergraduates, perceive a larger difference between studying mathematics at the upper secondary level and university. Our results also show that the engineering students enrolled in distance programmes experience larger differences between secondary and tertiary levels than engineering students enrolled in campus programmes. Furthermore, our analyses show that students’ success in mathematics is related to their perceptions of the rift experienced in the transition. In all, our results highlight the importance of taking a student perspective in the development of explanatory and useful models of students’ transition between upper secondary and university mathematics.

过往研究已识别出影响学生转向大学数学学习的诸多维度，但此类维度多被单独割裂研究。本研究采用此前尚未被探索的多维度视角，旨在深化学界对高级中等教育与大学数学学习过渡过程的认知。本研究结合该过渡过程的已知影响维度，对154名工科学生的数学学习经历与学业成就展开分析，结果表明唯有综合考量多维度因素，方能全面阐释这一过渡过程的完整复杂性。研究显示，相较于首次入学的大一新生，具备过往大学学习经历的学生，对高中与大学数学学习的差异感知更为显著。此外，就读远程教学项目的工科学生，相较于面授项目的同专业学生，更能感知到中等教育与高等教育阶段数学学习的差异鸿沟。进一步分析表明，学生的数学学业成功程度与其对该过渡阶段所经历的衔接鸿沟的认知密切相关。综上，本研究结果凸显了以学生视角为核心，构建能够解释学生高中-大学数学过渡过程的实用解释模型的重要性。