There is growing concern in Europe that some students are not well-equipped to start a Bachelor's or Master's programme, especially when the programme has a strong mathematical focus. In particular, attention is drawn to problems with mathematics in the transition from secondary to higher education. Higher education expects a certain level of…

Forty-eight participants read one of three texts (high explanatory, low explanatory, and standard) that varied in the degree of explanation of basic concepts of elementary probability. Performance test data showed that participants in the high-explanatory test condition did equally well on both formula and story problems. (Author/LC)

Interviewed six first-year college students in an introductory physics course about their beliefs about physics. Characterized the students' beliefs about the structure of physics knowledge as isolated facts or a coherent system; content of physics knowledge as formulas or underlying concepts; and process of learning physics as receiving…

Undergraduates in two experiments learned ten mathematical rules under different strategies of adapting instruction to individual needs. An adaptive model developed by Hansen was structured to use multiple predictors for two purposes: (1) to classify students into four independent learning style groups, thus allowing for group-based adaptation;…