Supporting engineering students within a maths learning centre environment

In 2002, a study conducted within Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) examined the numerical skills of first year engineering students to ascertain the impact of these skills on their ability to successfully pass the year. The results showed a strong likelihood that students with low numerical skills would withdraw or fail to pass the year. DIT is a multi-level institute, offering engineering programmes at levels six, seven and eight, and also incorporating a “ladder system”, which allows students who perform sufficiently well at one level to proceed into the next. As a result, students of different educational backgrounds often find themselves in the same mathematics module. Anecdotal evidence indicated that particular difficulties were experienced by students who, having completed a level seven programme, proceeded directly into third year of a level eight programme, where a significantly higher level of maths was suddenly demanded. As a result of these, and other, issues, the Students’ Maths Learning Centre (SMLC) was established to provide additional mathematical support for DIT students. Last year, one in ten students from the Faculty of Engineering availed of the SMLC’s drop-in service, with almost a fifth of engineering students making significant use of the SMLC’s online resources. In this paper, we identify the most common problem areas in maths for DIT engineers at various levels, along with the most useful resources for these topics. We also consider the possible effects of semesterisation on the learning of mathematics for engineers, based on patterns of attendance over the past couple of years