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posted by chromas on Thursday August 09 2018, @06:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the mathses dept.

Contrary to widely-held opinion, taking high school calculus isn't necessary for success later in college calculus—what's more important is mastering the prerequisites, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry—that lead to calculus. That's according to a study of more than 6,000 college freshmen at 133 colleges carried out by the Science Education Department of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, led by Sadler, the Frances W. Wright Senior Lecturer on Astronomy, and by Sonnert, a Research Associate.In addition, the survey finds that weaker math students who choose to take calculus in high school actually get the most benefit from the class. The study is described in a May 2018 paper published in the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education.

"We study the transition from high school to college, and on one side of that there are college professors who say calculus is really a college subject, but on the other side there are high school teachers who say calculus is really helpful for their students, and the ones who want to be scientists and engineers get a lot out of it," Sadler said. "We wanted to see if we could settle that argument—which is more important, the math that prepares you for calculus or a first run-through when you're in high school followed by a more serious course in college?"

The study's results, Sadler said, provided a clear answer -a firmer grip on the subjects that led up to calculus had twice the impact of taking the subject in high school. And of those who did take calculus in high school, it was the weakest students who got the most from the class.

To get those findings, Sadler and Sonnert, designed a study that asked thousands of college freshmen to report not only demographic information, but their educational history, background and mathematics training.

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-mastering-prerequisitesnot-calculus-high-schoolbetter.html


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  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday August 10 2018, @01:48AM (1 child)

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday August 10 2018, @01:48AM (#719734) Homepage

    I been working in high-tech gadgetry for 15 goddamn years and ain't ever seen a mathematician at all. I've worked with physicists, engineers, comp-sci monkeys, Ph.D oceanographers, technical people who studied Mandarin in college, and talented salaried autodidacts -- but not once have I seen a single fucking mathematician in industry.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @05:16AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @05:16AM (#719804)

    I've seen one, with phd even, but working as an engineer...tracking parts and QA test results I think.

    Good friend from undergrad got a full ride NSF scholarship to anywhere in the world, went to podunk state college, started working on elliptical integrals, dropped out a semester later to go to wall street and retired the following year to a big custom built mansion.