Abstract

A study by the Student Experience Research Advisory was conducted during the summer of 2010 to gather data regarding the student experience with business math classes. All first-year Bachelor of Commerce students are required to complete one of the following business math courses: Math 104, 184, or 110. Secondary data review was conducted to generate sufficient background for further research and comparative analysis. Online survey was administered on a census basis with a response rate of 27%. Additionally, in-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with a sample of five second year Bcom students.

Data that had been gathered allowed for achievement of all research objectives set before SERA by the Undergraduate Office of the Sauder School of Business. Each objective has been thoroughly examined per such variables as grade strata and tutoring service. All project reliability constraints such as interviewer’s biases, sample size, and research tools as well as response and non-response biases were acknowledged throughout each phase of the research.

The awareness level had been established per each tutoring service with AMS Drop-In being the most well-known service among the students. Sources of information for students were found to be in-class announcements, friends, and UGO emails. Respondents provided crucial ideas for increasing awareness among peers through advertising during commerce and UBC-wide orientations, class-liaisons, and posters in buildings with large population of commerce students. The main reasons for the unpopularity of the tutoring services apart from the awareness level are found to be overload of tutoring services, lack of time on behalf of participants, and schedule inconvenience. Respondents also provided an in-depth feedback into preferred tutoring style that confirm conducted secondary research: most respondents preferred one-on-one tutoring followed by group sessions and online tutoring. Target population is valuing expertise of tutors, their friendliness, and their ability to teach as main characteristics. While the study revealed that the majority of commerce students are not aware about the option to take Math 110, in-depth analysis suggested this awareness level did not affect students in their course performance.

After careful analysis of data specific recommendations were extracted and further developed by the Student Experience Researchers. These included marketing at specific events and buildings, timing of tutoring, hiring qualifications for tutors as well as effective learning and studying techniques emphasized by the study participants. Among several specific recommendations, maintaining Sauder-specific tutoring during the exam and assignments period remains a priority. Detailed recommendations are available in the conclusion sections of the report.

Background

As part of degree requirements for the Bachelor of Commerce, all first-year students of the Sauder School of Business are required to take a business math course. Incoming students without background in calculus have to take either MATH 184 class or 110. The latter emphasizes additional material to strengthen pre-calculus skills and topics. Freshmen with a previous calculus background have an option to take either MATH 104 or 184. While Math 184 and 104 classes are three and four credits worth respectively, Math 110 is a six credits-based class that is taught over two semesters.

About 500 Sauder students take business math every year. During the winter session 2009-2010, a total of 493 commerce students were registered in the upper-mentioned math classes: 272 in Math 104, 166 in Math 182, and 45 in Math 110. With 11% of the freshmen commerce class who failed their math course, business math classes remain one of the main challenges for Sauder students.

Math Support Resources

In order to help students with their math coursework, UBC offers a variety of math support resources. The following resources were offered to UBC students to help them with their math studies in the 2009-2010 Winter Session:

• Professor’s and TA office hours: these were weekly office hours, where a professor was available to explain a concept, problem, or his or her marking criteria to a student.
• Class tutorials (Math 184 only): weekly optional tutorials were offered to Math 184 students, where a teaching assistant would go over material taught in class and several math problems.
• AMS Tutoring: tutors were undergraduate students who provided support for 100-level math courses

–       Drop-in tutoring at Chapman Learning Center: individual question and answer style tutoring

–       Residential tutoring: drop-in tutoring offered during evening hours at Totem Park and Vanier student residences.

–       Online tutoring: tutor was available on a windows instant messenger (msn) to answer students’ questions seven hours a week.

• Math Tutorial Centre. ran by the UBC Math Department, the centre hosts graduate student tutors (TAs) who provide assistance with 100-300 Math level courses (see Drop-in tutoring at Chapman Learning Center)
• Sauder Math Tutoring Sessions.

Secondary Data Review

In the framework of Sauder Math Tutoring Sessions, the first math survey was implemented in order to gather primary data on student’s opinion about the tutoring services offered at UBC. Sixty five first year BCom students were surveyed during the Winter Session 2009 as well as one of the class professor’s, Mark McLean, was interviewed on his observations.

The survey was conducted in David Lam library using random sampling. An opportunity to win $20 gift certificate from Tim Hortons was offered as an incentive. A total of sixty five Sauder students participated in the survey: 14 fourth year students (22%), 19 third year students (30%), 19 second year students (30%), and 5 first year students (8%). The remaining six participants chose not to state their year.

Based on survey results, only 18 students were not aware of UBC-based math support resources. Additionally, most students ranked their preferences with one-on-one or group person tutoring as most beneficial followed by weekly in-person study support session with peers and online peer tutoring via MSN.

However, the applicability of the survey feedback is restricted by several limitations:

• Location-based bias: as library was chosen for conducting the survey, it might be the case that only high-performers and on-campus residents participated in the survey.
• Representative sampling: only five first year and nineteen second students participated in the survey, out of sixty five. Thus, participants may not be representatives of the target population.

Interview with a professor yielded that major factors that affected students’ performance in the first-year math were algebra skills and class attendance. Dr. McLean also advised that students can always take Math 110 before taking Math104.

Client Profile and Project Focus

With math challenges faced by students, Undergraduate Office (UGO) of the Sauder School of Business is deciding whether to establish a Sauder Tutoring Center catered to commerce students. Paola Baca, the Associative Director of Academic Services at the UGO, has requested the Student Experience Research Advisory to conduct a research study that would assist the UGO with this decision.

The project involved two Student Experience Researchers who utilized research methods in order to gather data about tutoring services and students’ learning techniques. The study, thus addressed the following questions: (a) are students aware about the currently offered tutoring sessions, (b) do students know about the equivalence of Math 104,184, and 110, (c) why are the currently offered math support resources are unpopular, (d) what are the most effective studying and tutoring techniques for students, and (e) whether there is a need to establish a Sauder Math Tutoring Center.

Procedure

The study used an online questionnaire and face-to-face interviews in order to gather primary data regarding students’ business math experiences. Online questionnaires were chosen as it is the best research method to cover the target population of the 500 students. Moreover, this type of survey allowed the project team to receive feedback from students who were not in Vancouver during the summer. As surveys are inflexible research tool, face-to-face interviews were also chosen as an additional tool to get an in-depth feedback and gather more qualitative data.

Online Questionnaires

The online questionnaire contained seventeen (17) questions: three  Yes or No, five  tick box, three multiple choice, two drop-down box, one open-ended question, and one multiple selection question. The last question asked students to provide their email in order to get entered into an incentive draw.  The complete version of the online questionnaire is available in the appendix to this report (see page 23).

The survey itself was modified several times before its official launch. The pilot version of the questionnaire was also tested by the SERA team, consisting of seven students: second, third, and fourth year Sauder students with different demographic characteristics. Additional feedback was provided by the UGO and Sauder Learning and Technology Department.

The target population for this project were 493 Sauder students who were registered in a business math course during the 2009 Winter Session. Student researchers decided to exclude the third and fourth year commerce students. Senior and junior students might be unable to provide a fully detailed feedback on math courses given these students took a business math course more than a year ago.

A total of three emails were sent out by the UGO during the survey phase: an introductory, reminder, and thank you emails. Introductory and reminder emails contained 6-7 sentences and the link to the survey website. Both emails contained the following subject line: “Help Us Improve First Year Business Math”.

As all members of our target population had a chance to participate in the survey, the questionnaire was not sampling, but a census. The first email generated the majority of responses – 51%. During the period between the introductory and reminder email, only additional 17% responded. After the follow-up reminder email, additional 30% of the respondents completed the survey.

All respondents who submitted the survey participated in the $25 Starbucks gift card draw. Each email was assigned a random number. Winners were selected using Excel random function that picked out two numbers inside the specified range of participants.

Face-to-Face Interviews

SERA team utilized face-to-face interviews to collect more in-depth data on students’ experiences with business math.  While the survey allowed the project to gather a large pool of quantitative data, interviews provided students with the opportunity to voice any other issues not mentioned in the survey. Student researchers constructed interview questions to gather data beyond survey on issues, such as how did students discover tutoring services, how did it help them in their studies and what is the best studying technique in their opinion.

Interviews contained 16 questions and were conducted by two student experience researchers in the Bruce Birmingham rooms of the Henry Angus building.  The researchers used general guide approach that allowed them to ask standardized open-ended questions and clarify each question if necessary. Although this approach allows for extra flexibility in conducting interviews, it could have also caused biased responses. In order to conduct a careful frequency analysis and for internal organizational purposes, all interviews were recorded and transcribed (transcriptions are available on page 46 of the Appendix).

Each interview followed this arrangement:

1. Rapport building (introduction to SERA and the Math Tutoring Project).
2. Interview is conducted.
3. Ask for any questions or concerns related to the project.
4. Thank students for their contribution and ask whether they would be interested in participating in further projects.

The student experience researchers sent out interview invitations only to survey participants as they had a higher chance of signing up for an interview. Such convenience sampling could have affected the study results and thus will be discussed in the next section of the report.

The SERA team has decided to limit sample size of this phase to five students. Originally, the project team planned to interview one student from each grade strata: one from 1-19% range, one from 20-39%, one from 40-59%, one from 60-79%, and one from 80-100%. However, due to limited number of responses received, the five students selected for an interview were from the following grade stratas: one student from 51%-65%, 76%-85%, 86%-100%, and two students from 66%-75% grade range.

Each interviewee was rewarded with a 10$ Starbucks gift card. The student researchers sent out two interview invitation emails with the following subject lines: “Guaranteed $10 Starbucks gift card” and “Research Interview Invitation”. The first subject line generated zero responses, while the latter received a number of positive requests.

Following individual responses, researchers determined what grade stratas are to be examined and agreed that only one (1) student per strata to be interviewed. In cases where there was more than one response in one grade strata, the project team used Excel random function to randomly pick an interviewee.

Potential Reliability Problems

Online Questionnaires

The survey included the entire population, not just the sample. Because the survey is census, it is not prone to traditional sampling errors. As the survey was implemented via internet, students who were away from Vancouver and even Canada were able to fill out the questionnaire.

The most important non-sampling concern for the project’s first phase was non-response bias. Of the 493 students asked to participate, 27% complied. Thus, the majority did not participate in the survey. It is issue whether the 27% who filled out our questionnaire are representatives of the target population. The non-response bias cannot be completely eliminated without the whole population participating in the chosen research method.

Non-response bias usually exists when responding students’ feedback differs from non-respondents in certain outcome variables, and these differences can be tracked in their responses. The outcome variables can be demographic characteristics or socio-economic status. Traditionally, the effect of the non-response bias is minimized when a researcher uses statistical modelling tools to adjust (weight) for the non-respondents.

Given the pilot version of the survey and time limits, the SERA team excluded questions regarding demographic characteristics of students, such as gender, age and race. To increase degree of confidentiality the survey also did not ask students to submit their student numbers. Thus the data regarding demographic variables of the respondents is unavailable.

Potential variables by which a non-response bias can be tracked are performance in the course and course taken. Only 4.5% of all respondents were students who scored below 50% the course. In reality, about 10% of the target population failed one of the math business courses. Such underrepresentation might underscore the reliability of the feedback received.  A preliminary analysis of responses according to grade ranges showed that respondents from the 0-50% range all agreed that one of the reasons of their underperformance was a poor instructor. This was the main difference in responses between respondents from this grade range and students with performance of 50% and above.

Another slightly underrepresented group was the next grade strata: students who scored between 51% and 65%. Only 19% of the respondents were from this grade strata compared to the 29% of the whole population. The two next grade groups of 66-75% and 76-85% were fairly represented with the percentage representation among survey respondents close to the one in the target population. Students who scored above 86% contributed to about one-third of respondents, although they comprise only 14% of the target population.

Face-To-Face Interviews

The main concern with conducting the interviews is response bias.  The following issues will be closely examined in this section:

• Using more than one interviewee
• Semi structured nature of interviews
• Using convenience sampling

Interviewing only five students raises the question of whether the results are representative of the average student’s opinion. Researchers gathered the maximum data possible given time constraints and situational factors, but a possible inquiry may be needed to validate findings.

Reliability could also be questioned by the fact that more than one researcher conducted the interviews. For example, their unique personalities, biases, race, and gender could have skewed the results in some way. Researchers went through preliminary meetings and acknowledged their biases to minimize this possibility.

Interviews followed a semi structured pattern, where while there were specific interview questions, researchers provided examples or defined certain questions for subjects. It is also possible that data may not be reliable due to the fact that only students who have passed the course were interviewed. The share of students who did not pass the course is the lowest when compared to other grade stratas. However, it might be useful to weight more responses given by a subject in the 51-65% grade strata.

Findings

1. Interview data and analysis

General Experiences

Most respondents formed their opinion about math either during middle school or high school. Two of the respondents from the pool of grade stratas up to 75%, stated that their impression about math changed from positive to negative at university. This occurred mainly due to transition from high school to university or professor’s teaching.

The remaining three respondents indicated that they had positive associations with math mostly due to that fact that they received strong marks in the subject. University professor mostly allowed for this positive experience to stay same through capable teaching.

The main source of information about Math requirements for the students was the Sauder and UBC websites. Only one student said he found out about the Math 104 after an appointment with the UGO advisor.

Effective Studying Patterns and techniques

Respondent No. 1 (51-65%) completed practice problems, homework and extra problems. Her study patter involved studying 3 hours of Math 4 days a week.

Respondent No. 2 (grade strata 66-75%) used to just review notes in class, complete assigned homework, and cram in a group with other students. However, the student found that studying regularly would be a more efficient way to prepare for the exam. The frequency analysis and word count indicated that the respondent placed a particular emphasis on university transition and difficulty level of the course.

Respondent No. 3 (grade strata 66-75%) completed weekly homework, attended workshops and tutorials, and completed extra problems before midterms.

Respondent No. 4 (above 86%) completed homework, practice midterms and exams as well as attended classes and tutorials. The subject also said he concentrated on understanding material in class. The word count suggested that one of the subject places a large emphasis on tutorials and group-based study.

Respondent No. 5 (76-85%) studied independently only before exams, midterms, and weekly quizzes.

One of the observations from the interviews was also that respondents from higher grade stratas (4 & 5) concentrated on their studies before exam dates, but were also very focused on understanding all aspects of theory and practice in the class. In contrast, other respondents placed emphasis on their studies outside of class.

The following are study patterns recommended by the respondents and the suggested recommendations on how one enforces these patters:

1-    Regular study and practice (R:2, 5, 1):

A professor could enforce such patterns by

1) Constantly warning about the upcoming midterms;

2) Scheduling regular quizzes;

3) Providing solutions to practice problems;

2-    Pay attention in class (R: 4)

Evaluation of existing UBC Tutoring Services

Student`s interpretation of tutoring:

Almost all respondents defined tutoring in context of one-on-one setting. Students stated that they valued the expertise of tutors, their ability to clearly explain concepts, and their friendliness.

As per advertising, the respondents found out about tutoring in class, through posters and emails. Further questions allowed researchers to generate the following ideas regarding spreading the word about UBC tutoring services among commerce students:

• Get a student (class liaison) to advertise math tutoring in every class
• Promote tutoring during Frosh and Imagine
• Advertise the math support services at Sauder Café and Henry Angus

Sauder Tutoring Services and further improvement

Last questions of our interviews were directed on whether students would attend the Sauder Tutoring Services and what area should UBC organizations focus on in improving first year business math experience. All of the interviewees would attend the proposed Sauder Tutoring Services before exam or assignment dates. Students varied in their response to the change that would impact Sauder students the most. Among mentioned there were

• Improving tutoring
• Providing smaller-size tutorials
• Focusing on concept rather than memorization  in teaching business math
• Less emphasis on lecture-style teachings, and more on workshops and tutorials

1. II. Survey data and analysis

The complete list of all survey questions is available in appendix  .

Course Performance (Q: 4)

This section covers question 4: “How would you rate your performance in the course?”.  Comparison of the number of actual students and subjects of the survey in each grade strata is examined in the reliability section of this report. The course performance question will be used extensively in the survey analysis for both filtering and cross-analysis to achieve research objectives. Table showing the grade distribution of subjects who participated in the survey is shown in appendix on page 46).

Math 184 & 110 (Q: 2, 3, 5, 6)

Out of 78 students who took Math 104 in 2009-2010 Winter Session, 8 students (10%) did not know about the 184/104 equivalence and 69 students (31%) were unaware about the option to take 110 instead of 104 class. Out of 50 students who took Math 184 in 2009-2010 Winter Session, 35 students (70%) were unaware about the option to take 110 instead of 184 class.

Grade stratas and reasons given for underperformance by students who were enrolled in either Math 104 or 184 who were aware and were not aware about the option to take Math 110 are represented in table No. . The table excludes students who did not take any business math courses or took Math 110.

One of the hypothesis that was to be examined as a part of the study was that student’s awareness to take Math 110 affects their future performance, i.e. students who didn’t know about the option to take Math 110 (Group: U.W.) and took Math 104/184 perform much poorly than those who did know (Group: A.W.).  The data shown in the table, however, contradicts the hypothesis. Very few students in both AW and UW groups stated course difficulty as the reason for their underperformance. Indeed, the majority of UW group stated that the reason for their underperformance were poor professor, lack of personal efforts, and adjustment from high school to university.

Given the significantly small number of students who were unaware about the 184 and 104 equivalence, analysis similar to the one above was not carried out.

Awareness and Evaluation of Math Tutoring Services (Q: 7,9, 10, 11, 12, 13)

Only 3.7% of students surveyed were unaware about any UBC-based tutoring services. Other services mentioned by 1.5% of students were Prep 101 and TA office hours. However, the 1.5% of respondents were also aware about other tutoring services provided in answer choices.

When looking at the awareness levels of the different Math resources offered on campus, it is clear that AMS Drop-in tutoring is the most popular (30% awareness level). It is also important to note that Sauder Math support had only an 8.3% awareness level. This could be one of the reasons the service had a low turnout during its first year – 2009 Winter Session.  Also, the data suggests that the majority of subjects became aware about the services through classes, friends, and UGO emails. For detailed breakdown of data see appendix on page 29.

From the pool of respondents who were aware about at least one of the services, 50%, 48.3%, and 48.8% in the lowest and two highest grade stratas respectively failed to attend any of the UBC tutoring services. Only 32% and 36% of students in grade stratas 66-75% and 76-85% respectively did not utilize the services offered.

More than half of the respondents, who used the services, attended them only before assignments and exams. This also holds across different grade stratas. Higher grade stratas, however, have a greater proportion of students who used services on a more regular basis than just before exams and assignments.

Given there were no respondents who utilized all of the six tutoring services mentioned in question 11, there is no clear data suggesting that one service is perceived to be more effective than another. AMS Drop-In tutoring, AMS Rez-tutoring and Math Annex Tutoring are similar in nature of the service provided: student comes to the service place with his questions or problems, signs up on the list, waits to be assisted by the tutor. The analysis that follows will be based on a small sample size and thus might not be reflective of target population.

Five of the respondents’ pool used all of the three above mentioned tutoring services. Two of them rank AMS Drop-In, two rank Math Annex, and one ranks UGO Support Session service as the most effective tutoring service. The other pool of respondents – fours students who attended AMS Drop-In, Math Annex, and UGO tutoring services revealed that students rank the Drop-In and Support Sessions as the most effective services among the three previously mentioned.

AMS Online and Appointment tutoring are different in their setting or channel of communication. As none of the respondents used both of these services and mostly AMS Drop-In, only these three services will be examined:

1)    Six students who attended both AMS Drop-in and AMS Online Tutoring:

Each third of the pool acknowledged the following services as most effective: AMS Drop-In, AMS Online, and UGO Support Sessions.

2)    One student who attended AMS Drop-in and AMS Appointment Tutoring:

The respondent ranked Math Department Drop-In as the most effective method.

This preliminary analysis is different from the results of the question twelve of the survey: “In your opinion what is the most effective tutoring style? ”. Responses resulted in the following ranking: 1-on-1 person, group sessions and online tutoring. Filtering responses by students who attended online tutoring produces the same ranking.  Thus, there is a high probability that the target population views 1-on-1 tutoring as the most effective tutoring style.

As per reasons for not using the resources, survey provided mixed results. Most students provided “not enough time, “could not make it to a specific time” and “too crowded” as their reasons.

Studying Patterns (Q: 14, 15)

As seen in table below, study patterns follow a common pattern in across all grade stratas: more than half of all students study only before deadlines. The second largest group are students who study regularly, followed by students who leave it to last minute and those who did not study at all.

As per learning techniques: one-third of respondents recommended to rely heavily on self-study, followed by roughly equal share of respondents recommending group study, math resources tutoring, and exam info sessions. Interestingly, such distribution (within 1-5% change) holds across all grade stratas.

Further Feedback

While feedback provided by respondents to open-ended questions varied, the following are most common suggestions of students (in order of frequency):

• Improve professor’s quality (specifically, students had difficulties understanding professors with heavy accents and illegible notes)
• Encourage students to do all problems
• Students should pay more attention to small details in problems assigned on exams Make the Math 100 and 104 exemption more clear for AP students

Conclusion and Recommendations

The Student Experience Research Advisory (SERA) conducted online survey and interviews regarding Business Math courses: Math 104, 184, and 110. The study focused on two broad topics: effective study and learning patterns and UBC tutoring services,

Results for the effective learning study are mixed. Extensive interviews resulted in the majority of subjects recommending regular study and practice along with strong concentration during classes. A professor could enforce the strategies by constantly warning students about the upcoming midterms, scheduling regular quizzes, and providing solutions to practice problems. The survey data revealed that students should put a greater emphasis on individual practice and also use collaboration with peers, math tutoring resources, and exam preparation sessions. For further improvement in class, students should pay close attention to details in math problems and try to practice as much as possible. Many complaints were also voiced regarding understanding professor’s notes and oral lectures due to illegible writing and strong accents.

For the UBC-wide offered tutoring services rich feedback and ideas were generated. Despite low the awareness level, often below 30% for tutoring services, up to half of the students who do know about the services offered still fail to attend them. In order to increase student’s knowledge about the support provided, it is recommended to utilize Frosh, Imagine, and Gala days to heavily promote services available to students, advertise the services at buildings heavily populated by commerce students, including but not limited to Henry Angus and Swing building, and email first-year students with a list of resources available via UGO and CUS listserv. As per inducing students who are aware about the math resources, the UGO alone or through negotiation with AMS and Math Department should offer additional help during the exam and assignment times, take into consideration the commerce STT’s when scheduling tutor’s shifts, and provide more flexible solutions to busy students. These recommendations are supported by the majority of students identifying crowdedness, unappealing time slots, and lack of time as main reasons for failure to attend the services despite being aware about the resources.

While offering any support resources, it should be noted that most students define tutoring in context of one-on-one tutoring. UGO and UBC institutions should train or hire tutors that have strong expertise, are friendly, and are able to clearly explain concepts as these are the main criteria by which students evaluate tutoring services.

In a situation of time and funding constraints, SERA advises UGO to put emphasis on Improving tutoring, providing smaller-size tutorials, focusing on concept rather than memorization  in teaching business math, and emphasizing workshops and tutorial teaching styles. While improving quality of teaching and enforcing regular study habits in students is ideal for learning, these were the areas specifically voiced by representatives of the target population. In context with all previously mentioned recommendations; SERA team advises Sauder to continue offering commerce-tailored tutoring, but only during the assignments and exams periods. However, this should be done only after significantly increasing awareness level among students.

Appendix 1 – Math Survey

1. Were you enrolled in the following courses during Winter Session 2009-2010? Check all that apply

1-Math 104

2-Math 184

3-Math 110

4-I didn’t take any of the abovementioned courses

1. Did you know that you could take MATH 184 instead of MATH 104?

1 – Yes

2 –  No

1. Did you know that you could take MATH 110 instead of MATH 184/MATH 104?

1 – Yes

2  – No

1. How would you rate your performance in the course?
   1. 0-50
   2. 51-65
   3. 66-75
   4. 76-85
   5. Above 86

1. Do you feel you could have done better?  Yes/No

1. If you answered yes, please prioritize the following five choices. If you didn’t, please skip this question

1-course is too hard

2-big adjustment from high school to university

3-poor professor

4-lack of any support/extra help

5-didn’t put enough effort

6-Other (please specify)

1. Which of the following math resources offered on campus have you heard about? Check all that apply.
   1. AMS Drop-In tutoring
   2. AMS Online tutoring
   3. AMS Rez tutoring
   4. Math Annex tutoring
   5. Sauder Math Support

1. Where did you hear about them?
   1. In class
   2. Friends
   3. AMS website
   4. UGO email notice
   5. Non applicable
   6. Posters in library
   7. Other

1. From the following math resources which one have you used?

AMS Drop-In tutoring

AMS Online tutoring

AMS Rez tutoring

AMS Appointment tutoring

Math Annex tutoring

Ugo Math Support Sessions

None

If you selected “None” please proceed to question X

Other

1. Specify how often did you use any of them:

AMS Drop-In tutoring    [drop down box: once a week, biweekly, once a month, midterm/exam – or once a semester)

AMS Online tutoring

AMS Rez tutoring

Math Annex tutoring

UGO Math Math Support

(put default to Not applicable)

1. Among the resources that you used which one was most effective? Please specify ________ (blank)

Please skip the next question.

1. In your opinion, what is the most effective tutoring style? Please rank from most preferable

1-on-1 person

Group sessions

Online tutoring

1. What were the reasons you did not you use any of the resources?

I have used them

Found out about it too late

Did not need it

Was not aware of them

Didn’t have enough time

Couldn’t make it at specified times

Was too crowded

Other

1. Now that you have completed a course, rank the study methods in order of their effectiveness

1-Group study

2-Math resources tutoring

3-Exam info sessions

4-Professor’s and TA’s office hours

5-Self-study

1. How did you study for the course?

1-    I studied regularly

2-    I studied just for the assignments and exams

3-    I left it to the last minute

4-    I didn’t study

1. Any additional comments about your first-year math experience:
2. If you would like to be entered into the draw to win a $25 Starbucks gift certificate, please provide your email address below: (Please be assured that your email address will not be correlated to your survey responses)

Appendix 2 – Emails sent to study participants

Subject: Help Us Improve Business Math Experience

Dear BCom student,

We’d like to invite you to participate in an online survey about first year Business Math.  The survey is being run by SERA (Student Experience Research Advisory), which is a newly founded research group at the Sauder School of Business that is run by students for students.

We’re conducting this survey on behalf of the UGO and other partners who teach/tutor Math at Sauder, to find ways to enhance student success in first year Business Math. You have been selected to participate in this survey because you were enrolled in either Math 104, 184 or 110 during the 2009-2010 Winter Session – and because we believe that you have valuable ideas and experience to share with us.

Please take a few minutes to complete our short and easy questionnaire about your recent Math experience.  To show our appreciation, all participants who complete the survey will be entered into a random draw for two $25 dollar starbucks gift cards. All your responses will be kept strictly confidential and anonymous. Please have the survey completed by    _________.

Please click the link below to access the survey.

https://www.surveyfeedback.ca/surveys/wsb.dll/s/1g748

Thank you for input and support.

Subject: Reminder: Change first year Math 104/184/110 experience

Dear (name),

Last week we launched our survey intended to enhance the business math experience for future BCom students. Many have already participated but we still need to hear from you! We would greatly appreciate it if you could take a couple minutes to share your thoughts.

Your submissions are stored without using any personal data (e.g., name, std num) to ensure their confidentiality and anonymity. The survey is quick, easy and can be completed as late as (time date).

After completing the survey you will also be entered into a draw to win $25 Starbucks card. SERA will share the results of the survey once it has been compiled into a final report.
Please click here to begin:

https://www.surveyfeedback.ca/surveys/wsb.dll/s/1g748

Sincerely,

The SERA team

Student Experience Research Advisory

Learning and Technology Services

Sauder School of Business

University of British Columbia

http://sera.sauder.ubc.ca

Subject: Thank you

Dear Student,

Thank you so much for participating in our math survey. Your response will help Sauder School of Business to enhance the business math experience for the incoming Sauder students.

We greatly appreciate your time and feedback. Our team will share the results of the survey once it has been compiled into a final report.

Unfortunately, you were not among the two randomly selected survey participants to receive the $25 Starbucks gift card. Thank you again and good luck in the upcoming academic year.

Sincerely,

The SERA team

Student Experience Research Advisory

Learning and Technology Services

Sauder School of Business

University of British Columbia

http://sera.sauder.ubc.ca

Appendix 3 – Detailed Survey Results

How did you study for the course?

Any additional comments about your first-year math experience:

Appendix 4 – Interview Script

1. SERA background intro (mission, math project, our qualification)
2. Interview questions:

1)      How do you feel about math in general?

–          When did you form this opinion about math?

–          Why did you form this opinion?

2)             In what ways did your professor affect your opinion of math, if at all?

3)             What do you think the role of professor should be in improving first year business math? (what changes would you make so that students can feel better about the course)

4)             What methods did you use to study?

5)             How would define tutoring in your own words? One-on-one? Group?

6)             Are you familiar with any of the tutoring services available at UBC? (which ones)

7)             What criteria did you use when evaluating tutoring? (friendly tutoring, harsh tutors)

8)             How do you think UBC tutoring can be improved?

9)             What are your studying habits and/or patterns?

10)         What do you think is the best studying pattern for Math?

11)         How do you think professors should enforce the effective studying patterns?

12)         Where did you find out information about math 104 and 184 equivalence and the math requirement?

13)         What places do you think will be the best to advertise math tutoring?

14)         If Sauder Tutoring services were to be offered, should it be set up as regular (weekly, biweekly) sessions or only before midterms and exams?

15)         Would you want to use these services? Why or why not? If so, how often?

16)         What is the most important aspect of improving the first year math? What do you think UBC should focus most on to improve first year math? (harsher professor, rising awareness about difficulty level for math)