Designing, developing and evaluating mathematics supports for students at the transition to higher education

This thesis investigates the design, delivery, and evaluation of mathematics support interventions for students at the transition to Higher Education (HE). The research comprises two interrelated components. The first focuses on the development and implementation of a self-paced, online mathematics support course aimed at improving incoming students’ mathematical confidence and competence before the start of their university studies. Drawing on principles of diagnostic assessment and formative feedback, this intervention was designed to provide accessible, flexible support tailored to diverse learner needs. The second component details the design and development of an innovative, first of its kind in the world, team based learning (TBL) model for mathematics at the transition to HE. Emerging from a pilot study involving pre-university students and now scaled to support large cohorts of approximately 300 students each year, this model emphasises collaborative problem-solving, structured peer interaction, and formative team-based assessments and has produced improvements to student satisfaction, mathematics confidence and competence as well as improvements to retention and progression rates.

Citation

Parkes, A. (2025) Designing, developing and evaluating mathematics supports for students at the transition to higher education. University of Wolverhampton. https://wlv.openrepository.com/handle/2436/626137

Publisher

University of Wolverhampton

URI

https://wlv.openrepository.com/handle/2436/626137

Type

Thesis or dissertation

Language

en

Description

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Mathematics Education).

Collections

Theses and Dissertations