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Math and Science Popular With Students Until They Realize They're Hard
First time accepted submitter HonorPoncaCityDotCom writes "Khadeeja Safdar reports in the WSJ that researchers who surveyed 655 incoming college students found that while math and science majors drew the most interest initially, not many students finished with degrees in those subjects. Students who dropped out didn't do so because they discovered an unexpected amount of the work and because they were dissatisfied with their grades. "Students knew science was hard to begin with, but for a lot of them it turned out to be much worse than what they expected," says Todd R. Stinebrickner, one of the paper's authors. "What they didn't expect is that even if they work hard, they still won't do well." The authors add that the substantial overoptimism about completing a degree in science can be attributed largely to students beginning school with misperceptions about their ability to perform well academically in science. ""If more science graduates are desired, the findings suggest the importance of policies at younger ages that lead students to enter college better prepared (PDF) to study science.""
hard is merely the fact that often, the theories and equations taught are quite abstract. It is very important to have a solid grasp of concepts, but in the end, the material could be improved with visual and/or tangible results which have some values and/or association to the abstract concepts.
Its the last 20 years of coddling and telling kids thay can do anything, handing out prizes to everyone, and boring the crap out of anyone with an extra IQ point above average that makes the mentality that well, of course you can dear, all you have to do is work hard and you can do anything.
Then you get a classroom full of people who expect a prize every time they do anything.
/ old grump rant..
In almost any skill that has to be learned, there's often a fairly rapid and abrupt transition from "I can't do that" to "I CAN do that and since I now know how to it's actually easy".
I think a lot of people get discouraged when they're unable to get through that transition on their own the first time they try it, and "I can't do that right" can be appear to be an impossible mountain to climb, even if you're not far from the top.
I think we need to be challenging kids from an early age to learn things that are "hard" so that they become intimately familiar with this progression from impossible to trivial. Too often I see kids these days try something that looks interesting to them a couple times and then decide "nah, that's too hard" and quit.
It's not specifically teaching perseverance, but more about learning to recognize that progress is almost never linear toward a goal and many times you won't recognize you've reached your goal until you're actually there.
Additionally, we ought to be able to get better at helping people fight through these places they get stuck, rather than just leaving them with a failing grade in a math class and a feeling that that they're not up to the task. Early recognition of students who are having difficulty and focused tutoring and other help getting through the hard parts to the point that they achieve their needed breakthrough.
I don't think any undergraduate subject should be so inherently difficult that anyone who can get into the university in the first place shouldn't be able to do well in it.
G.
I started in college as a comp sci major. I already knew how to program in BASIC, C, and C++ with reasonable proficiency and was excited about the major. However, I had a string of lousy math teachers until high school and struggled with algebra. Oddly, I was always fine with trigonometry and statistics, and I never had issues with the logic part of programming (I'm an attorney now). I was drastically unprepared for college mathematics. Because comp sci majors weren't even allowed to take major-required coursework until they had various math prerequisites, I started behind. After I nearly failed a mid-term in math class I barely understood with a TA I literally could not comprehend, I dropped the class and the major. I retreated to my safe zone in history and eventually ended up in law school.
While I'm not disappointed with the way things worked out, since my hands give me trouble just with the typing I do for my job now, I do wonder how different my life could have been if one of my math teachers caught on that I was struggling before my senior year of high school. I finally had a good teacher that last year, and she pulled my aside after class and turned a D to an A, but it was too late by then. I just lacked the skills.
From my perspective, the biggest issue in math education, and really education in general, is grading with no follow up. If a student isn't getting it, failing them doesn't make them get it, and passing them with pity is even worse. This flaw in a lot of education was really hammered home to me in law school when a professor got frustrated her ENTIRE class failed an exam. If the whole class fails, it isn't the students...
Ironically, I always had amazing science teachers. They were always engaged and excited. I usually got good grades. But, one science teacher was the only teacher I ever had who picked up on the fact that I was being teased and then tried to do something about it. And, my aunt is a science teacher, so I may be biased.
My rambling point...they need to be catching the kids who are struggling in second to fifth grade. My math issues started with multiplication in elementary school. I was behind, and no one ever caught it because in our school system you could basically still pass if you didn't understand, provided you just got enough questions right and showed effort...and passing was all that mattered.