Anxiety for numbers and calculations is not uncommon in the student population, and such emotional response is by no means non-existent in the student population of programmes that require graduates to be familiar with numbers to excel when they become members of the workforce. Educators from around the world have therefore been seeking ways to make students more comfortable with quantitative subjects.
To address such anxiety, the team of Prof Lolita EDRALIN, Associate IHERD Fellow, emphasised personalised learning experiences for a cohort of 80 master students using online interactive learning platforms. These platforms included regular in-class check-in questions that prodded students to practice new concepts, apply them in real-world situations, and reflect on their learning. The technologies used were built for to provide feedback, which guided students’ learning and helped them build their confidence. All these alleviated content-related anxiety.
To share her team’s work to fellow educators, Prof EDRALIN presented with the title "Inclusion through Personalisation: Managing Quant Anxiety with the Aid of Interactive Online Platforms” at the 8th International Conference on Education and E-Learning organised in Tokyo on 23 November 2024, and was awarded with the Best Presentation Award.
During the conference, Prof EDRALIN was inspired by the sharing of Prof Jon DRON from Athabasca University who maintained that “Today, in many subject areas, skills acquired at the start of a university program will be obsolete by its end. We change the world at a greater and greater rate and scale, and it changes us…”. Indeed, as academics, the role of education has never been more consequential, and it is vital that educators change how they teach when students have changed how they learn.
The next iteration of the study by Prof EDRALIN’s team will apply these techniques to a group of undergraduate students in 2025. Testing these techniques on both the undergraduate and master’s students would ensure the generalisability and transportability of the research results.
