Kahn, P. E. and Anderson, J. and Austin, K. and Barnard, A. and Jagger, J. and Chetwynd, Amanda G. (1998) The significance of ideas in undergraduate mathematics. Teaching Mathematics and its Applications, 17 (2). pp. 78-85. ISSN 1471-6976
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
This study considers the extent to which students are acquiring an understanding of mathematics as a whole and of the relative significance of different parts of mathematics to that whole. Lecturers and undergraduates were asked to give five "big" ideas appropriate to the first two years of a mathematics degree, and to give reasons for their choices. The study indicates that, even after two years of undergraduate mathematics, many of the students involved had not developed such an understanding, and concludes that developing such understanding, while also maintaining high standards in students' content knowledge, will become an increasingly important challenge in the future.