-
Archives
- December 2019
- July 2018
- October 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- November 2016
- September 2016
- May 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- November 2015
- October 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- March 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- May 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
-
Meta
Category Archives: mathematical misunderstandings
Significant figures and decimal places
Following the finding that students struggle with significant figures and decimal places, we added a question that tested fairly basic rule-based understanding (of stuff that I thought we were teaching quite well in the Maths for Science book). The question … Continue reading
x to the minus 1 = 1 over x. OK?
I have posted before about the difficulties that students have with fractions and the problems that this causes. Many others recognise the same difficulty. On a related point, students also have problems with reciprocation, and sometimes it is simply that they don’t … Continue reading
Yet more problems with significant figures, using a calculator for scientific notation and precedence
The question shown was originally planned to assess students’ ability to estimate, but since we can’t prevent them from using a calculator, I adapted it to test calculator use as well. 43% of the analysed 14943 responses were correct, and the … Continue reading
More on significant figures
I’ve said before that students are not good at giving answers to an appropriate number of significant figures. But what do they do wrong? The question shown on the left provides some insight. The correct three options are B, C … Continue reading
Significant figures and rounding
I’ve posted before about the difficulties students seem to have with significant figures and rounding. This post adds some data, to give you an appreciation of the size of the problem. The data are for the question shown on the left … Continue reading
Scientific notation
The question shown on the right is quite well answered even though it is on the formative-only practice assessment. Errors when they do occur are mostly as I’d have predicted – 4.5% of responses give the wrong sign in the power … Continue reading
Is the answer 6, 9, 300 or 11809.8?
It was the analysis of question such as the one above that led to one of my early insights into mathematical misunderstandings. I discovered then that a common answer to this question was 11809.8. This is caused by students finding 310 and then … Continue reading
Posted in mathematical misunderstandings
Tagged mathematical misunderstandings, powers
Leave a comment
Formative or summative logarithms
I’ve posted before about the fact that whilst students usually engage quite well with formative-only iCMA questions, when the going gets tough, they are inevitably more likely to guess than is the case when the mark counts. When I eventually get … Continue reading
Converting radians to degrees
The question shown on the left is actually quite well answered (81% of students got it right at the first attempt) especially since it is in the formative-only practice assessment rather than the summative end-of-module assessment. However it is interesting that … Continue reading
Problems with trigonometry or rounding?
It is not a mistake that I start this post with a screenshot of the same variant of the same question that I was talking about last time. I said that 8.2% of responses got the trigonometry or the algebra … Continue reading
Posted in mathematical misunderstandings
Tagged mathematical misunderstandings, rounding
Leave a comment