Nonlinear Psychometric Thresholds for Physics and Mathematics

sylvan8798
Mon, 02 Jan 2012 01:00:28 +0000

ucbalumnus:

even if the universities and community colleges did have the resources to offer that many remedial math sections, they still would not be able to “save” those who lost interest in math after poor quality K-12 math courses and avoid having anything to do with math.

This is very true. Having taught remedial math courses many times (now sworn off from that one), I have found that for many students who believe that they are not good at math it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I myself must rather have been an exception ;).

That said, I personally believe that any student (well pretty much) who can manage to get themselves into college can manage to get through basic algebra, and a basic non-theory calculus course. Harder to convince them of that.