Use of informal media for basic mathematics by university students
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Kathrin Thiele, Prof. Dr. Reinhard Hochmuth and Prof. Dr. Ralph Ewerth
Students today show a significantly different media usage than 20 years ago. Especially in the first semesters at the university specialist literature is rarely used. Instead, the students use informal media (Wikipedia, YouTube, etc.) to close gaps in knowledge. One subject that many engineering students find difficult is mathematics. The range of video clips on basic mathematics, for example on YouTube, is huge. It ranges from short math songs to entire lectures. The content and didactic quality of these offers is very different. It is up to the user to recognize the high quality media. It turns out that some students recognize the demanding offers very well and quickly, while others are overwhelmed with the abundance of the offers. In some cases, the knowledge acquired is incorrect or incomplete enough to lead to misconceptions.
The doctoral project aims to investigate the difference between the successful and less promising use of informal media. What skills does the successful use of YouTube and Co. require? Based on this, learning settings should be designed to integrate the use of informal media into the courses. The students should learn to use informal media more efficient. The learning settings can be evaluated in various lectures at the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences.
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