Poor Maths Skills Failing Engineering Students

30 March, 2002

Poor Maths Skills Failing Engineering Students

Engineering students across the globe are suffering from poor maths skills, a recent survey of professors shows, and Australia is far from immune. The survey, conducted in Australia by Hearne Scientific Software on behalf of Mathsoft Inc (developers of Mathcad and StudyWorks), highlighted that students continue to drop out of engineering courses at high rates, with difficulty mastering maths being a major reason cited by professors.

Worryingly, 52% of the Australian lecturers surveyed feel that mathematics skills in engineering undergraduates have worsened over the last ten years. However, Australia can take some comfort from the fact that it is far from the worst in suffering from this decline. The UK (82%); France (79%); Germany (63%); Denmark and Italy (55% each) also thought that maths skills were slipping in their country. The findings counter the widely held view that European students benefit from higher standards of secondary education.

In the MathSoft survey, Australian professors estimated that 36% of the students they had taught did not receive the high school fundamentals needed for undergraduate engineering studies. Respondents said that "difficulty mastering maths" was the 2nd most common cause for a student to drop an engineering major, but "poor study habits" or "social distractions" was the number one reason stated by 48% of respondents. Prospective engineers are selecting other subjects to study, and this trend is also reflected in the US where engineering firms have been facing a shortage of engineers for the past decade forcing them to look outside the US to find qualified engineers. The question is whether they will be able to find them in Australia.

Despite these difficulties mastering some elements of the course, students choosing engineering studies in Australia do so mainly due to an affinity with maths/science or invention. Conversely, in the US, UK, Italy and France the main reason for choosing an engineering subject is the perception of the students that it will lead to a good job with good security.

"The level of mathematics and science taught in high school has deteriorated significantly over the past 10 years and students now have a much poorer entry understanding of the fundamentals than 10 years ago." said Dr Osvaldo M Querin from the School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds. "As a lecturer it seems that we are now faced with teaching 1st year undergraduate students mathematical skills which used to be taught in high school but which appear not to be taught now."

"We need to look at better ways to prepare today's students to become tomorrow's engineers," said Chris Randles, Chairman and CEO, MathSoft Engineering & Education, Inc. "Our survey focused on identifying the views of higher education professors towards the difficulties the engineering profession is facing. Looking at all the findings, it is clear that we need to improve the ways in which we make engineering more attractive - there is much more potential to apply the latest in software, Internet and learning technologies to achieve these goals."