Links between students’ goals and their choice of educational resources in undergraduate mathematics

Abstract

Currently, there is a dearth of studies exploring the kind of tools that undergraduates use when studying mathematics with previous approaches focusing mostly on digital or institutionally provided resources. In this article, we present and discuss the results from our investigations into the different types of tools that a cohort of second year engineering undergraduates uses. Our survey (N = 201) showed that although to some extent students use resources external to their university, their practices are dominated by tools that their institution provides to them. Analysis of six follow-up interviews revealed that when students use the most popular resources they aim mostly for exam-related goals. This suggested that students in our sample choose to use certain tools because these enable them to pursue their exam-driven goals.