Abstract:
Mathematics plays a key role in higher education as it is particularly essential to
develop the analytical thinking of students. Mathematical skills would certainly assist
to enhance students’ knowledge in a wide range of disciplines, especially, in
engineering sciences. Therefore, exploring the student academic performance has
received great attention among researchers recently. The main objective of this study
is to investigate the impact of mathematics on students’ academic performance at the
end of Level 2, in different engineering programs. The study was conducted with
engineering undergraduates from seven different disciplines at the Faculty of
Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka in academic year 2011/2012.
Students’ examination marks of mathematics courses in Level 1 and Level 2 and all
compulsory engineering courses in Level 2 were used for the study. Explanatory data
analysis techniques and canonical correlation analysis were used to achieve the
objectives. Statistical testing confirmed that only the first canonical function is
significant for all engineering disciplines. The amount of variance between the
students’ performance in mathematics and engineering courses in Level 2 explained
is varied from 39% to 73%. The students’ performance in engineering courses in both
semesters of Level 2 is positively and strongly related to mathematics performance
irrespective of the engineering disciplines. Furthermore, the combined effects of
mathematics in Level 1 and Level 2 on students’ performance in engineering courses
in Level 2 are significantly higher compared with the individual effect of
mathematics in Level 1 or Level 2. The combined effects of mathematics in both
Level 1 and Level 2 are immensely beneficial to improve the overall academic
performance at the end of Level 2 of the engineering students. However, the impact
of mathematics varies among engineering disciplines. The students are encouraged
to achieve high marks in mathematics courses for better performance in engineering
courses.
