Abstract:

The paper describes the research, aiming to verify the didactic effectiveness of the teaching model that uses innovative e-learning material. This teaching model was designed not only concerning the desired educational results and an emphasis on developing cross-sectional competencies but especially concerning students' initial mathematical knowledge in the post-pandemic period. The target group comprises students in the 1st year of bachelor study programs at the technical university.
The e-learning module is integrated into the student information system as part of the comprehensive support of 1st-year students during their studies. The web interface makes working with the module and accessing its content intuitive. The e-learning module contains two types of content: parts for acquiring knowledge of mathematics, which is necessary when studying subjects at a technical university, and parts for checking understanding in the form of interactive self-tests from individual thematic areas. The E-learning module aims to improve the student's knowledge of secondary school mathematics so that they complete not only mathematical subjects but also university-based subjects and, subsequently, technical subjects using mathematical apparatus.
The research had two primary objectives. The first was to find out whether applying the proposed teaching model using innovative e-learning material has a statistically significant effect on students' success in the exit test from the high school mathematics curriculum. The second goal was to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference in the success of solving the exit test by men and women. To answer the research questions, we implemented a natural pedagogical experiment, and T-test was used for statistical verification of established hypotheses using Minitab software.
The respondents comprised 82 students in the 1st year of bachelor's studies in the academic year 2022/2023. All students took an entrance test from the secondary school curriculum at the beginning of the semester. The groups were equal in the state of initial knowledge, as the difference in the average score of the groups was not statistically significant. The groups of women and men were also equivalent in the amount of input knowledge. Subsequently, in teaching the experimental group, the proposed teaching model was applied for ten weeks using the e-learning module. In the last week of the teaching part of the winter semester, the students took the exit test from the high school curriculum.
The obtained results indicate that implementing the teaching model using innovative e-learning material in the teaching of the experimental group had a statistically significant effect on students' success in the high school mathematics curriculum exit test. The experimental group students achieved a higher average score on the exit test than the control group students, and the difference was statistically significant. The results further confirmed that although men scored higher than women on the exit test, the difference was statistically insignificant.
The presented research revealed two significant findings: 1. The proposed teaching model using an innovative e-learning module, which emphasises increasing the quality of educational results by focusing on the student, is didactically effective. 2. Knowledge of high school mathematics in the first semester of bachelor's studies at a technical university is independent of gender.

Keywords:

Online teaching, digital technologies, Technical University, Mathematics.