Insights from incoming university mathematics students

Katie Severn, Assistant Professor in Mathematics 

Did you go to university? If you did, can you remember the feelings of excitement, nerves and uncertainty as you prepared to start your course? While it’s easy to recall those main emotions, pinpointing details—like how prepared you felt, your confidence level, or even your perceptions of the subject—might be more challenging. For most of us, recalling specifics from those early days is a guessing game. If only we had a time machine! 

While time travel isn’t on the agenda just yet, a recent study at the Observatory has given us the next best thing: insights directly from students experiencing the transition to university as it happens. 

 

This past September, the Observatory surveyed students who had accepted firm offers to study mathematical sciences degrees in the UK, capturing their thoughts before they’d even set foot in a lecture hall. Unlike previous studies that rely on looking back at the transition, this survey allowed us to hear students' real-time perspectives, offering a fresh look at their thoughts, expectations, and feelings on the cusp of starting their university journey. 

We received responses from over 1,000 students, offering valuable insights into their confidence in mathematics, their perceptions of the subject, and their expectations for learning mathematics at university compared to their experiences in school. Additionally, we collected demographic data, allowing us to explore potential differences across various groups of learners. Later in the year, we’ll conduct a follow-up survey to see how these students are adjusting after their first term, allowing us to compare their initial expectations with their actual experiences at university. 

Reassuringly, many of the results aligned with our expectations: most students expressed confidence in maths, valued problem-solving exercises, and anticipated that maths would be more challenging at university. But there were also surprising insights, particularly around coding and its connection to mathematics. 

The below graph shows the responses to the section ‘your expectations of learning maths at university’ where students were asked at how strongly they agreed with the following statements, at University: 

• Maths will be much more difficult than at school/college. 

• Maths will build directly on what I learned at school/college. 

• To do well, I will need to attend all timetabled teaching. 

• I can do well even if I don’t understand all the maths. 

• I will need to write maths more precisely than in school/college. 

• I will be able to focus on the parts of maths that I find interesting. 

• To do well in maths, I will need to be good at coding/programming. 

One result that stood out was students' responses to the coding-related statement. Only 41% of respondents believed they would need coding skills to succeed in university maths. This perception of coding being “separate” from maths extended to students' confidence levels: over 55% admitted they didn’t feel confident in coding or computing, although males reported higher confidence in coding (37%) than females (13%).

The Coding Disconnect: A Challenge for Mathematics Education

As a university lecturer in mathematics, it’s clear to me how essential coding skills are for maths students today. Coding workshops and coding-related assessments are increasingly common in a variety of modules, and many career paths that follow a maths degree also require coding proficiency. Yet, our survey reveals that incoming students aren’t always aware of this link, likely because they’ve had limited coding exposure pre-university, and it’s often taught rather separately from the maths curriculum.

This disconnect between maths and coding presents a challenge, but it also gives us a chance to rethink how we approach coding education. With this evidence, we hope to influence changes in both university teaching and pre-university preparation to help students feel more confident and ready to tackle coding as part of their maths degree.

We’d love to hear your thoughts! Were you surprised by these findings? If you're from outside the UK, how do you think these results would differ in your country?

Author information

Katie (she/her) splits her time between the School of Mathematical Sciences, where she teaches statistics modules for undergraduate students, and the Observatory for Mathematical Education (where she is one of our data experts).  

Observatory for Mathematical Education team

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