More Math results on a High School Test from UW

Much thanks is due Dr. Theo Eicher and Dr. Mass

From: "Cliff Mass"

A UW economic professor, Theo Eicher, gave my math assessment exam to a 400 level (senior) econ class. These kids had to have at least calculus. As expect, they did better than my 101 class..but there are still gaping holes...see the links below...cliff

http://www.econ.washington.edu/user/te/blog/post/2010/02/12/Good-News-Bad-News.aspx

http://www.econ.washington.edu/user/te/blog/file.axd?file=2010%2f2%2fresults.pdf

Professor Clifford F. Mass, Department of Atmospheric Sciences,
University of Washington

There were some significant improvements as all these folks had taken at least Calculus because they were in a 400 level Economics class with 60% Seniors, still there were a few shockers when compared to Dr. Mass's Atmospheric Sciences 101 results.

64^(1/2) = ____ went from 64% to 95%

and 2^(-2) = _____ went from 48% to 76%

Amazingly the formula for the area of a circle = ______ only went from 57% to 59%

with an a,b,c right traingle pictured on the test.
the definition of cosine a = _______ only went from 53% to 67%

Wow .. Algebra II ... PreCalculus .... Calculus and cosine a = ?

See it all on the links above.

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Comment #1

That is amazing, Cliff. Economics is a tough and math-based major. One would expect students graduating with a degree in economics to be able to do those problems easily. My son has a Masters Degree in Accounting, I gave him the test and he did every one of the problems in his head (most of them in seconds). He was shocked to find out that students entering the UW would struggle with such an easy test. It is definitely a problem with the way math is taught. Mastery based teaching (as opposed to Inquiry-based) results in student knowledge of such material.

Laura