Does Experience in College Mathematics Courses Affect Elementary Arithmetic Performance in College Students

Undergraduate and graduate students at Cameron University (N = 158) were given the D' Amore Test of Elementary Arithmetic to test whether or not experience in college mathematics courses might be associated with a relative increase in arithmetic performance compared to those students who had not taken college mathematics courses. We found that only 31.7% of the subjects passed the D' Amore test by achieving 10 out of 10 correct. However, we found that subjects who had taken college math courses had significantly higher D' Amore test Scores than those who had not taken college mathematics courses. Also, higher college mathematics grades were associated with higher D'Amore Test Scores.  Standing, Sproule, & Leung (2006) examined elementary arithmetic abilities of undergraduate business and economic majors at a university in Canada. Using the D'Amore test of elementary arithmetic they found that the majority of college students (59.7%) tested received a failing grade, thus raising an important issue regarding the prevalence of substandard mathematics abilities in university students. We sought to examine the notion that experience in any type of college mathematics course might be associated with or affect elementary arithmetic performance in both undergraduate and graduate students. We thus administered the D' Amore test to a sample of undergraduate and graduate students at Cameron University along with a brief demographics questionnaire.  Participants One hundred and fifty-eight students attending Cameron University, including undergraduates (97.0%) and graduate students (3.0%) were the participants. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 54. There were 54% females and 46% males in the study. Psychology and business majors composed a majority of the sample (22.1% and 25.3%, respectively), while the remaining 52.6% were of a wide variety of academic disciplines across campus. Survey The D'Amore Test is a 10-item mathematics questionnaire, which was adopted by Lou D' Amore in 1992 to assess simple arithmetic skills and was employed many years earlier to test 3rd grade math students (Cornwall, 1999; Hume, 1932). The current demographics survey contained questions regarding the subjects' age, gender, class standing, major, college mathematics courses taken and grade in the listed mathematics courses. Procedure Participants were instructed to read and sign an informed consent document which briefly described the purpose of the study, the risks and benefits of participation in the study, and a statement of confidentiality. The participants then filled out a short demographics questionnaire and completed the D'Amore test. No calculators were allowed and written rough work was permitted. All of the participants completed the surveys voluntarily and if they were psychology students they were given extra credit in one psychology course. Scores on the D'Amore test were calculated for each participant. A passing grade was a 10 out of 10 on the D'Amore test. All of the data from the surveys were entered into SPSS v. 13 for statistical analysis which included calculation of descriptive statistics and One-way ANOVA.  We found that 31.7% of the subjects passed the test. The mean test score was 8.38, SD = 1.74, and the range was 0 to 10. We found that that D'Amore test scores were significantly higher in those subjects with college mathematics experience. …

Field of study: Education