Mr. Ciarán O'Sullivan:

On behalf of the network, we want to give some brief insights of the key points from the report, which is 100 pages long. Mathematic learning support is the free mathematical support that is given to students in addition to their lectures, tutorials and assignments at third level. It is commonplace across the world at this stage and it is part of the response to what has been documented as the mathematics problem: students entering higher education without the mathematical background they require. The Irish Mathematics Learning Support Network is a community of practice of academics and others working in the area of mathematics learning support across institutions.

One of the major undertakings we set about, in 2011, was to conduct a survey across as many institutions across the island of Ireland as we could, in order to determine the response of students to mathematics learning support. Our questionnaire was taken in nine higher education institutes, four institutes of technology and five universities. The questionnaire was in three sections. Section A asked for the students’ background. Section B was for people who had availed of maths learning support to ascertain their levels of satisfaction and whether they felt it had been helpful. We were also interested in students who had not availed of maths learning support and wanted to find out why they had not engaged with it and what would encourage them to do so.

The profile of the respondents was very much what we expected. There was a balance between male and female and the mature student proportion was in line with that of the overall sector at the time. Respondents came from the fields of science, engineering, business, arts, education and computing. Approximately 34% of respondents had taken higher level mathematics and the balance had taken ordinary level mathematics for the leaving certificate. Some of the mature students did not have a leaving certificate, which they did not need to enter third level education above the age of 23. There was a slightly different mix between universities and institutes of technology, IOTs, with 43% of university students having done higher level mathematics compared with 12% in the IOT sector. This was what we expected.

The key finding of the questionnaire was that 36% of students were availing of maths learning support, 31% of students felt they did not need the help, and 33% had not engaged with maths learning support for other reasons. We were particularly interested in finding ways to encourage the latter group to engage. The key issue for first year students is to succeed and progress to second year. We discovered from the survey that 22% of students who had used maths learning support had considered dropping out because of issues with mathematics and 63% of those students felt that maths learning support had made a significant impact on them in terms of staying with their studies and continuing on. Another 3% of students who had not reported themselves as having considered dropping out said the reason they had not considered dropping out was the fact that the maths learning support was there. Around one in four students who had considered dropping out of higher education because of mathematics difficulties did not do so, and two thirds of those did not do so because of the help they had had from maths learning support.

Arising from our findings, we feel maths learning support should be embedded as a permanent fixture in higher education institutions across the country. The information that is so useful to students should be communicated to them upon entry into third level. The benefits and financial savings to the colleges should be highlighted, given that every student who decides not to drop out is a saving on an investment that has been made in the student in first year and beyond.

Typically, maths learning support services offer a drop-in centre where students can come with any question and get help at any stage. This was the most positively endorsed and most used service. Revision workshops and support tutorials are also run. There is also a group of ICT-enabled supports, which were the least used and the least positively endorsed. The key people in maths learning support are the tutors working in the maths learning centres, and we recommend they be given special training in how to deal with students who come in. The human interaction is a key factor. Arising from the report, we have been working on developing strategies around enhancing students' digital literacy skills to ensure they can make the most use of whatever digital support is there.

To a large extent, success in mathematics is contingent on confidence. Some 56% of students felt availing of maths learning support had had a major impact on their confidence. A similar percentage felt maths learning support had had a very positive impact on their mathematical performance. From the point of view of coping with the mathematical demands of their courses, two thirds of students indicated that maths learning support had been very helpful. It is very important this information be communicated to incoming first years so that they know that engaging with these extra supports can have a very positive impact on their learning in first year. From a practical point of view, it is very important that there be increased collaboration between lecturing staff and course providers and the people working in maths learning support to try, in a very practical way, to encourage students to avail of maths learning support by ensuring an element of continuous assessment is built in extremely early in the semester, within the first two to three weeks, to try to encourage students to immediately engage with supports.

Some 48% of students who did not engage with maths learning support stated that they did not need help. There were other practical issues in terms of times not suiting and not knowing where the support was, and these were ranked highly. Some 40% to 50% of students were giving reasons in those categories. Maths learning support units can react to this by adjusting their services. While many students, 29%, said they would go to support centres if they needed support, a significant number referred to better times and more information. Another issue that is very important from a practical point of view is that maths learning support centres can become very busy at certain times of the year and respondents felt that having more resources and better locations for maths learning support was very important. Over recent year, one or two maths learning support centres have been moved within the libraries of higher education institutions, as opposed to being in a separate room. This seems to increase footfall and engagement, which is very positive.

We drilled down into the relationship between prior mathematical achievement and availing of maths learning support and discovered that the stronger the mathematical background, the less likely students were to avail of support. Among students who had switched from higher level to ordinary level during their leaving certificate years, the longer they had stayed at higher level, the less likely they were to feel they needed maths learning support. This is very significant in light of the bonus points.

We wanted to focus on mature students, particularly in the IOT sector. There was a very definite, statistically significant link between adult learners over the age of 23 and engagement with maths learning support. Adult learners will use every option they have to be successful. This will have consequences.

If there will be more adult learners engaging with higher education, and the plan is to try to bring that statistic up, mathematics learning support centres must be adequately resourced to deal with that. From a practical point of view, the tutors within mathematics learning support centres must understand that there are very different motivations on the part of adult learners and traditional learners who may have come from school. Adult learners will want to know reasons why. They will want to know about depth and so those different motivations are very important in terms of giving them the kind of support they need.

The final key fact we noticed is that there was a link between gender and availing of mathematics learning support. A statistically higher proportion of females availed of mathematics learning support regardless of prior mathematical achievement or disciplines of study. There was a significant association between gender and the categories that emerged for the reasons given for use of mathematics learning support. There were differences there but, critically, we discovered that once they had engaged with mathematics learning support, male and female students did not report any difference in their experience or the academic impact of using mathematics learning support.

In respect of our current work for the network, we were fortunate to receive network funding from the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. We are using that funding to build the strength of the network; conduct an audit of the provision of mathematics learning support across the island of Ireland because we operate across the 32 counties and in particular; and try to action some of the recommendations that came from the report, particularly in the area of tutor training. We have developed a tutor training package that can be used in all the institutes on the island in terms of making it easy to do high-quality mathematics learning support training for the tutors.

Mathematics learning support is now well established in Ireland but as things grow and develop, funding, including multi-annual and permanent funding, for mathematics learning support can be an issue. The access office is well established in the fabric and infrastructure of third-level education. Mathematics learning support needs to be on a similar kind of footing. Another issue that has a very practical impact is that the fact that funding for postgraduate students in mathematics has reduced. This has had the knock-on effect of lack of availability of suitable tutors in mathematics learning support centres. They are two issues that are beyond the control of people working in mathematics learning support but they may need some consideration.