Post-pandemic online mathematics and statistics support: Practitioners’ opinions in Germany and Great Britain & Ireland

Holly Jade Gilbert, Mirko Schürmann, Duncan Lawson, Michael Liebendörfer, Mark Hodds

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)
67 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Mathematics and statistics support (MSS) plays an important role at many universities. Typically, support has been provided in person, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, online provision was required. This paper reports on a scoping study comparing how support services changed during the pandemic at institutions in Germany and Great Britain & Ireland (GBI), exploring how well online MSS worked, and what can be learned for the future. As MSS in Germany differs in history and structure from that in GBI, we contrast results from the two locations. A total of 82 participants from 44 individual institutions answered an online questionnaire. Although at first, support was used less by students, engagement has begun to recover. The survey included questions addressing issues raised in previous studies, and answers showed notable differences between the two jurisdictions. In GBI, service providers felt that students with low confidence or time restrictions can benefit from online provision. In Germany, online spaces for student collaboration without tutoring was found helpful. Even though most respondents want a return to face-to-face, practitioners are aware of the benefits of online support, and it becomes apparent that certain services will still be offered online and could especially serve specific student groups.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-26
Number of pages26
JournalInternational Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology
Volume(In-Press)
Early online date19 Mar 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 19 Mar 2023

Bibliographical note

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Keywords

  • Mathematics and Statistics Support
  • Academic Support
  • Digital Support
  • Online learning
  • COVID-19 pandemic

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