Results of a survey on effects the restricted learning of science and mathemathics in high school on general education in university

In Japan, professors who teach mathematics and science in the general education course generally face an awkard problem that their students have completely different curricular backgrounds. When things are at their worst, a considerable number of students in a class have practically no experience of the subject in question in their high school days. This unfavorable situation is getting worse as the number of obligatory subjects of mathematics and sience in Japanese high school keep decreasing. In view of these circumstances, we came up with the conduction of a survey as for students' curricular backgrounds in high school and their learning history after entering the university. This survey was done in the spring of 1998. Students who answered the questionnaire are classified into two groups; the first (old-curriculum group) includes those who graduated high school before 1996 while the second (late-curriculum group) after 1997. Accumulated data of these two groups were independently analyzed. Furthermore, data of science students were separately shown from those of non-science students. In this article, both the learning history of students and their attitude toward mathematics and science were compared between old- and late-curriculum groups. Those students educated under the late-curriculum in high school generally tend to be more dissatisfied with their class of science or mathematics after entering university