A cross-national study of calculus
The results from a cross-national study comparing calculus performance of students at East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai and students at the University of Michigan before and after their first university calculus course are presented. Overall, ECNU significantly outperformed Michigan on...
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Published in | International journal of mathematical education in science and technology Vol. 46; no. 4; pp. 481 - 494 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
London
Taylor & Francis
19.05.2015
Taylor & Francis, Ltd Taylor & Francis Ltd |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The results from a cross-national study comparing calculus performance of students at East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai and students at the University of Michigan before and after their first university calculus course are presented. Overall, ECNU significantly outperformed Michigan on both the pre- and post-tests, but the Michigan students showed a larger gain and normalized gain, and hence narrowed the gap. ECNU's superior performance was especially striking on the subset of problems requiring only a pre-calculus background. On those, Michigan's post-test scores were below ECNU's pre-test scores and, indeed, ECNU's higher performance on both the overall pre-test and overall post-test is attributable to its success on these problems. |
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ISSN: | 0020-739X 1464-5211 |
DOI: | 10.1080/0020739X.2014.990531 |