Investigating relationships between the usage of Mathematics Learning Support and performance of at-risk students

The provision of some level of Mathematics Learning Support is now commonplace in the majority of Higher Education Institutions in the UK and Ireland. Most of these supports were initially established with the aim of trying to address the problem of large numbers of first-year students with weak mathematical backgrounds. The centres provide students the opportunity to overcome mathematical issues in their transition from school to Higher Education. This article presents findings from a recent quantitative study at a university, where the range of supports available and levels of engagement have increased dramatically since they were first offered in 2007. We investigated if the Mathematics Support Centre there was still helping the students who needed it most; in particular, we considered students’ mathematical backgrounds, the number and length of their visits and their end of year module grades