Abstract:

This communication synthesizes the results of a research conducted by the Human Development and Data Processing Department of the University of Mons (UMONS) aiming at enhancing the basic training in quantitative data processing it organizes in the Psychological and Educational Sciences undergraduate program.

In response to various political recommendations for the organization of activities to help students succeed in higher education in the French-speaking part of Belgium (Decrees of 2013 and 2021), the UMONS Faculty of Psychology and Education integrated into its initial program a device for assessing students’ basic skills in mathematics, English, French, and science and providing remediation where necessary. In each discipline, the pedagogical teams organize a diagnostic assessment at the start of the first term of the academic year. Students who pass this dispensatory test are not requested to do it again. In contrast, unsuccessful students can participate in various remedial activities before taking the certification assessment at the end of the second term.

The research presented in this paper focuses on the mathematics assessments and on the prerequisites we identified to highlight potential gaps in students' initial learning and to implement early adapted remedial measures. Indeed, various studies showed that success in higher education depends on prior knowledge and skills (Galdiolo et al., 2012; Hoffmann et al., 2013; Leclercq, 2011; Vertongen et al., 2015). However, not all students master these prerequisites homogeneously. This situation leads to inequalities depending on their educational background (Galdiolo et al., 2012).

We conducted a question-by-question analysis of the mathematics test organized during the October 2022 and June 2023 assessment sessions (622 students took the diagnostic assessment in October 2022, and 251, who had not passed, took the exam in June 2023). The items targeted several skills: priority of operations, written calculations, equations, problem-solving, proportionality, operations on absolute values, arithmetic means, coordinate of a point and basic probability. The results of the October 2022 assessment show that the three questions students were least successful in are: “finding coordinate points based on an equation” (9.32% success rate), “written division” (31.35% and 40.03% success rate), and “operations on absolute values” (32.96% success rate). The results of the June 2023 test show that the three questions students are least successful at are: “written division” (29.88% success rate), “calculating the arithmetic mean using division” (19.12% success rate), and “calculating proportionality in a problem situation” (19.92% success rate). A quick analysis of these various items highlights that they require the application of elementary concepts acquired a long time ago (written calculations with multiplication and division), abstract concepts (spatial geometry, absolute values, distances), or problem-solving (especially proportionality calculations without a proportionality table).

A more precise analysis of each question will be conducted in the paper to better understand the difficulties encountered by the students and organize appropriate remediation to support their success.

Keywords:

Higher Education, Diagnostic Assessment, Remediation, Basic Math Skills, Undergraduate Education.