Each year, students with different knowledge levels of mathematics enroll in the Academic study programme of Electrical Engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana (UL FE). The majority of students come from general or vocational secondary schools which means there are a lot of different students with different levels of knowledge. Insufficient mathematical knowledge at the UL FE leads to poor understanding of the most important basic subjects that are crucial in understanding further, more complex topics. Reducing these disparities is time consuming for the professors, while students struggle with continuing their education. These differences in knowledge begin in primary school, and that is why it was crucial to analyse the problem of primary schools in this postgraduate thesis.
This thesis carries out a comparison, and an analysis of curriculums in primary schools from 1983 on, curriculums in secondary schools from 1991 on, as well as a comparison of exercises in matura from 2004 on. The analysis of curriculums in secondary schools includes general and vocational secondary schools (SSI). Furthermore, an analysis of exercises in splošna and poklicna matura was carried out. An overview of current measures taken by UL FE is included, to show how they are managing a standardization of prior knowledge of mathematics.
Analysed topics are divided into three groups – Geometry and measuring, Arithmetics and algebra, and Other topics. This type of categorizing appears in some primary schools’ curriculums that is why secondary school topics and exercises from matura are categorized the same way. One of the measures at UL FE is a course Matematični uvod v študij elektrotehnike. It includes the most important topics a student needs to successfully finish first year of undergraduate study. Topics for this course were chosen by professors who teach all first year classes at UL FE. All topics, covered by this course, belong in Arithmetics and algebra, and that is why we focus more on this group in the analysis.
When comparing Arithmetics and algebra in primary school curriculums it was apparent that each curriculum increased the amount of topics to be covered, and at the same time decreased the number of hours of mathematics. General secondary schools generally kept the same number of hours, devoted to mathematics, but increased the amount of topics to be covered. In comparison with older curriculums in vocational secondary schools, the new curriculum from 2007 decreases the number of hours for mathematics. In addition, a large part of obligatory topics in 1991 were made elective with curriculum of 2007. This consequently decreased the number of hours for mathematics in both general and vocational secondary schools. Curriculum in vocational secondary schools, in comparison with general secondary schools, did not increase number of covered topics, but rather decreased it. It changed obligatory topics to elective topics and thusly a large part of topics, needed at UL FE, was not covered. This is apparent in comparison of exercises in splošna and poklicna matura, since elective topics are never among exercises chosen for the matura exam. In 2017, UL FE started a test of prior mathematical knowledge that is carried out in the first week of the first year. This way, the professors get insight into prior mathematical knowledge of new students, and see if basic mathematical tasks cause any difficulties. It is also clear the students from vocational schools in general achieve worse results than students from general schools.
Decreasing the amount of hours, or increasing the number of topics to be covered has significant adverse effect on the knowledge of students. Less hours of classes mean less hours of deepening the knowledge, and the increase in topics cause an overabundance of data the students have at their disposal. Consequently, this leads to inadequate knowledge, not sufficient for a good beginning at UL FE. This problem could be diminished by increasing the number of hours for mathematics in primary schools, because it would provide the time for necessary revising and intensifying the knowledge. At the same time, the quantity of topics covered should not increase. Rather, a bigger emphasis should be put on the group Arithmetics and algebra. This would make the transition to secondary schools, and later to universities much easier.
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