Students’ Perspective: The Interviews

Through the four interviews with students, we were able to look more deeply at the needs of the students who responded to the survey as well as gain insight about tutoring experiences. Aspects of Mackenzie’s interview were designed based on the observation that was done with a tutor while she was visiting the QLC and Whitney, Hannah, and Angela’s interviews were following up on the information they gave in the surveys as well as some of the general data that had been collected from the surveys. To analyze the interviews, thematic analysis was performed to code the interviews in relation to the students’ needs. Here, I will elaborate on the specific topics mentioned by each student they they believe were the most difficult topics in their mathematics Q courses, then describe the three themes describing the students’ needs that emerged from the thematic analysis: (1) tangible needs, (2) intangible difficulties, and (3) content.

Topics

During the interviews, students focused on new topics as those that they struggled with as opposed to prerequisite material. We hear from Whitney,

For me I think it’s mostly new stuff, just because, I felt like I had really good teachers in high school, as far as math goes, so I felt really prepared coming in. It’s more just like, a different set up and like, not liking my teacher as much as I had in high school, like I didn’t feel comfortable asking

him questions as much as I did in high school, that type of thing, made it more difficult. Not necessarily like, me not being prepared. (Whitney, p. 10)

Thus, I provide Table 4.1.7 showing the topics that were specifically mentioned by the four students as particularly difficult in their courses.

Area Specific Topics within Area

Limits General topic

Horizontal asymptotes

Integration Volumes of rotation (disks and shells) Series

Testing for convergence Errors

Fourier series Applications

Related rates Optimization

Mixing problems with differential equations

Other Lines and planes

Table 4.1.7: Topics Mentioned in Student Interviews as Challenging Topics

Intangible Difficulties

The first theme that emerged from the analysis of student interview transcripts was intangible difficulties. Intangible difficulties refers to the challenges that students face in their mathematics Q courses that do not necessarily directly relate to the content of the course. The intangible difficulties are needs that may not be only related to the students’ mathematics courses, but may also affect them in other courses or in their lives more generally. The two codes included in this theme are the transition from high school to post-secondary education and a disconnect between the student and the professor.

Transition. The conversations with the students illuminated that they had had some difficulty adjusting to the structure of their college mathematics courses, either because of the level of difficulty in the content or because of a different style of teaching from their instructor. Whitney was in her second semester of her freshman year when she was interviewed, and reflected that she had difficulty adjusting to the teaching style of her professor in her first semester, whereas she felt more comfortable with the professor of her multivariable class because he was “similar to teachers that [she’d] had in high school” (Whitney, p. 8). For Mackenzie, calculus had been difficult in her first semester but attending the QLC had helped her to look back on her high school experience and actually realize that she should have asked her teachers for more help even then.

Angela, who is intending to be a high school teacher when she finishes her degree, was a bit tougher on college professors when she reflected on the transition. She seemed particularly frustrated that in her opinion many mathematics professors have no formal training in education. She says,

So I think that’s a big thing for me, it’s just like, I wish the professors had some type - like a lot of professors don’t have that education degree which I feel like kind of affects the students more negatively just because in high school you go from teachers that have to have an education degree, like primarily it’s about education, and you go to college where like, most 75% of professors - don’t quote me on that statistic - don’t have that education background. (Angela, 11)

For Angela, the transition was difficult not only because she had to adjust to the different styles and, in her opinion, quality of teaching, but also because what she

was learning from these professors was something that she may need to teach to her own students in the future.

Disconnect with professor. This code speaks directly to a need that motivates students to visit the QLC in particular. Angela explains that there is “a disconnect sometimes within college professors and students so coming here allows me to get that student learning” (Angela, p. 3). She elaborated that the student learning was beneficial to her because the students could explain the pieces of the process along the way, whereas a professor might skip over steps that they do not realize she has missed. While a student may feel that they cannot relate to their professor or that there is some barrier between them, the QLC provides an environment with peer tutors that provides relatable instruction that connects with the student’s experiences. This relates closely to insights, a code in the findings from Research Question 2b, which will be discussed in detail in that section.

Tangible Needs

Tangible needs emerged from the interviews as a theme and represents those aspects of the mathematics Q courses that the four students discussed needing support with that directly result in a grade for the students. The two codes within this theme are homework help and studying. All four students said that they had visited the QLC for homework help, and Hannah added that she had also attended the QLC to study for a quiz.

Angela discussed that she came in for Calculus 1 due to homework questions that she wanted to make sure she had answered correctly. She said, “Last semester, I visited it, definitely quite often I would say once every week, week and a half - more

for like quick homework questions that I didn’t understand. Not really overall content, just like my homework was based on how well I did something so I wanted to make sure and get the reassurance that the answer would be correct” (Angela, p. 2). For Angela, it wasn’t so much the concepts in the class as it was making sure that she could answer questions correctly on her homework. Similarly, Whitney said that she came in once or twice a week after trying the homework on her own and not getting very far.

Content

Aside from the specific topics already discussed, the interviews with the students brought up difficulties that they had understanding the content in their courses. Two codes were subsumed into this theme, including understanding the question and applying the topic.

Understanding the question. Here, students revealed that one of the difficul- ties they had was actually understanding what the questions were asking them to do on homework and other assignments. For Hannah, this was partially due to the variety of ways that questions were asked, so deciphering what a question was asking required her to recognize the concept within questions that were phrased differently than she had previously seen. Angela agreed, saying, “the part that students have the most difficulty is just understanding what [the questions are] trying to say” (Angela, 4). While the students may feel that they understand the content they are learning in class, they still have difficulty understanding the phrasing or deciphering the context within a question.

because they had not practiced enough examples yet. Whitney explained that if she had only seen one example in class that she would ”have the idea of what the concept was but then trying to do anything else just from one example just didn’t really work well for [her]” (Whitney, 5). Whitney’s class relied heavily on group work in class so she felt that they did not see as many examples in class as they would in a more traditional lecture setting. Similarly, Hannah gave the example of learning about planes in multivariable. She described that she understood what they were doing in the class and all the concepts and equations, but without any practice it was difficult for her to know how to start the problem.