| Abstract | Introduction: An interesting statistic, from a survey conducted with students undertaking Business, Finance and Management undergraduate programmes at Middlesex University, Mauritius Branch Campus, revealed that 34% of them have chosen these programmes because they thought there would not be any mathematics or statistics involved. Moreover, colleagues teaching social sciences subjects such as Psychology have complained about the reluctance that the students show and the difficulties the students face, when they have to study statistics.
Clearly, from the very start, many students are ill-prepared when they have to study mathematics and statistics modules at Middlesex University - Mauritius Branch Campus. It is important that those students are guided and encouraged from the beginning. There are different ways to do this. Some UK universities offer study guides which students read to get prepared before they start their academic year.
Other institutions have Student Learning Assistants. Usually these are students who help their peers (students like themselves) in their studies. Normally senior students would assist junior ones. The aim of this report is to suggest innovative methods which educators like myself can use, outside the classroom, to improve students’ performances in mathematics-related subjects. The initial focus will be on identifying chapters in various modules across different levels, that can be used in “real life experiments“. This can be in the form of either giving students enough resources to enable them to experiment upon these theories, or using simulation in cases where resources and budgets are limited. The aim here is for the students to actually see that the theory they learn in the classroom is happening in real life. The Mathematics and Statistics Society (Mathsoc) which was recently founded at Middlesex University - Mauritius Branch Campus, can help in organizing these experiments as well as setting up games which enable students’ interactions and enhance students’ learning. Middlesex University opened its campus in Mauritius only three years ago, hence there is an understandable control over the budget given to societies. Mathsoc allows these experiments to be done without putting too much pressure on the people who are responsible for allocating those budgets. Motivating students to learn is quite a challenge in itself, but when it comes to subjects like mathematics, statistics and quantitative methods, the challenge might be bigger due to the fact that these subjects are more complex, abstract and appear disconnected from the students’ reality, especially those who are non-specialist students (those who are studying the above-mentioned subjects as part of a nonmathematical undergraduate programme). |
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