A Profile of First-year Students' Learning Preferences and Study Orientation in Mathematics

This paper reports on action research activities during 2000-2001, involving first-year engineering students in an extended study programme of the School of Engineering at the University of Pretoria. Students in the participating group were enrolled for a support course aimed at facilitating the fundamental concepts underpinning a study in calculus as well as complementing the development of personal, academic, communication and information skills. The thinking style preferences of three groups of students taking a first course in calculus were assessed and the study orientation in mathematics of the participating group was determined. The possible effects of thinking preferences and study orientation on performance in a first course in calculus were assessed. Analysis of the thinking style preferences of the students indicates a diversity representing an array of preferences distributed across all four quadrants as measured by the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument and differences between the thinking style preferences of science students and engineering students were also found. Analysis of data obtained from the Study Orientation Questionnaire in Mathematics shows that students of the participating group entered tertiary education with mathematics anxiety and a history of inadequate study environments. In this paper it is envisaged that freshman mathematics students can seemingly benefit from a learning facilitation strategy for mathematics that endorses a student-centred and a brain-based approach. Such a strategy is aimed at developing the mathematics potential of the learners, fostering awareness of thinking style preferences and improving study orientation in mathematics.