Comparisons of Students Achievements in Study Calculus : The Case of a Small and a Big Group of Engineering students at KMUTT

Abstract

One of the major issues currently affecting higher education is the maintenance of teaching standards (Quality Assurance) in the face of falling staff-student ratios. The problem is particularly acute for the first year students in calculus since not only are class sizes increasing but the students background knowledge is becoming more diverse. A study of success scores in the first-year course MTH 101 (Calculus and Analytic Geometry) taught to the students of Engineering Faculty (KMUTT)was implemented to test whether a smaller learning group (30- 40 student) would acquire better results than a larger group (80-l 20 student) within the framework of a traditional course’s structure : lecture-homework-intermediate tests-midterm and final examinations. The research sampling was taken from the 1997- 1998 Academic Year intake. The students of equivalent basic mathematical knowledge were divided into 2 categories : a control group of 22 students in the smaller group, and an experimental group of 22 in the larger group. Both groups had their 45 sessions throughout the semester being taught in separate classrooms. As the experiment’s tools the same transparencies for MTH 101, the same exercises and evaluation tests for mid- and end-term were used in both rooms. The success scores throughout the semester were accumulated and analyzed by comparison them to the averages of total success scores of the experimental and control groups through the use of T-Test statistics. The results of this study are as follows : Comparison of the averages of total success scores of there two groups shows no significant meaning (a=0.05)which implies that there is not enough impetus to say that the size of a group really effects these scores.

The explanatory research was concentrated on the analysis of characteristics that might be related to the total success score. The result of the sampling groups used in research were compared