Mathematics readiness of first-year college students and missing necessary skills: perspectives of mathematics faculty

Abstract

College readiness of students and the effectiveness of remedial mathematics courses have been under consideration for the last two decades. There is a considerable misalignment between the expectations of students regarding secondary education and those regarding higher education. Information about current expectations and perspectives of college mathematics faculty who have to deal with this gap is missing in the literature. This study explores college readiness of first-year students and topics that they need to have mastered before entering college. A survey was disseminated to college/university mathematics faculty throughout the US (48 states) whose email addresses were shown on their institutional webpages, and data were gathered from 737 faculty. The survey instrument includes scaled items reflecting the Common Core State Standards and free response items. The scaled items are divided into six subscales: Basics, Algebra, Functions, Geometry, Statistics and Probability, and Reasoning and Generalisation. Faculty responses are categorised and statistically analysed with respect to types of institution, position titles of the participants and types of course offered by those institutions. Findings indicate that faculty view first-year students as having poor mathematical ability in terms of what they consider to be important topics for college preparation. Faculty also agree that students need remediation, which, in its current state, is not sufficient. Implications of these results for further research and practice are discussed.