Students want to pass the course and go on to the next. Thoughtfulness Instructors want students to examine their ideas as a consequence of the course. Students want to complete their requirements and graduate. Instructors believe that their subject is engrossing and rewarding. Students believe that all courses are merely hurdles in the path of achieving a degree.
Students believe that materialism is most important.
This is the most common deficiency of entering college freshmen. In this area I also include problems with proportions, percentages, and ratios. The time alloted in the elementary program is limited. Arithmetic classes often jump immediately to decimal fractions after a brief introduction to common fractions. Symptoms include inability to get common denominators, use of mechanical shortcuts without understanding, confusion of algorithms.