In previous blog posts, we have explored how challenging science students can find it to apply their maths skills in science lessons. In this latest article we are excited to share some important research into this issue carried out by The Association for Science Education (ASE), with findings on how to improve learning outcomes for science students by focusing on developing their mathematics skills.
The Association for Science Education
The ASE is a professional association for science teachers that exists to improve the teaching of science. In this blog post, representatives of the ASE have:
- Shared their original research
- Detailed how they identified and addressed the challenges
- Described how together, we developed skills-based workbooks that helped overcome those challenges
Cambridge University Press has incorporated that research into our maths skills workbooks for both Cambridge IGCSE™ and Cambridge International AS & A Level Biology, Chemistry and Physics. These workbooks help learners to develop mathematical skills within the context of the science syllabuses.
The mathematics skills challenges faced by science students
‘The skills students are taught in maths lessons seem to be forgotten when they come into my science lessons’ is a typical statement made by many science teachers over the years at Association for Science Education meetings and conferences.
The challenges faced by students appears to be an increasing problem for many teachers of science. This is perhaps because the mathematical demands of the specifications have been given greater emphasis over recent years.
The same teachers have become aware that their students have difficulties with a range of different mathematical ideas in science contexts, even when science teachers explicitly address these specific skills in their teaching.
Guidance on teaching mathematical ideas
Several years ago, the ASE identified that science teachers needed specific support in the form of authoritative guidance on teaching mathematical ideas, produced in collaboration between mathematics and science specialists.
The project – Improve learning outcomes in science by developing mathematics skills
Producing the necessary guidance for teachers would ideally follow the Language of Measurement project run by the ASE a few years earlier. With this, a team of experts produced a document that clarified terminology used in science investigations.
Funding from the Nuffield Foundation in 2014 allowed the mathematics work to go ahead. They formed a steering group who advised on the range and content of a publication aimed at teachers of 11-16 science. During the project, discussions took place with representatives of awarding organisations, who supported the approaches taken in the publication.
The approach and publications
It was important that the recommendations in the publication were realistic in practice. To ensure this, there was a review of the draft guidance by a large panel of teachers before ASE produced the final publication ‘The Language of Mathematics in Science: A guide for teachers of science 11-16’ in 2016.
A second publication, ‘The Language of Mathematics in Science: Teaching Approaches’, was published at the same time. This contained a series of case studies that detailed the approaches to teaching mathematics in science lessons by some of the teachers involved in the project.
The aims of the project
The aims of The Language of Mathematics in Science project were to:
- Provide an overview of the mathematics relevant to science that may be studied at secondary school
- Indicate the relevance of the ideas to the activities undertaken in secondary school science
- Clarify the meaning of the terms used where there are common misunderstandings or where there are different meanings in different contexts
- Indicate where there may be student misconceptions and problems in understanding
- Identify, where relevant, approaches taken in mathematics teaching that may influence what is done in science lessons
Identifying and addressing the challenges
The Language of Mathematics in Science project worked collaboratively with a large number of science teachers through workshops, review panels and case study volunteers. ASE identified a wide range of issues faced by science students when applying their mathematical skills in science lessons. These included:
- Different terminology used by different teachers to describe a mathematical skill or approach
- Different approaches used to solve a specific mathematical problem
- A lack of consistency of approach and language by science teachers within a department
- A lack of opportunity to discuss coherent approaches between mathematics and science teachers
- Timing within the curriculum leading to teachers introducing mathematical skills in science before students had met these in their mathematics lessons
- Science contexts obscuring the mathematical skills required within a science lesson (often students were introduced to complex mathematical ideas within a challenging science context, rather than introducing the mathematical skill in familiar contexts first)
- Science teachers not recognising that their use of a mathematical term to describe a skill process or feature may not be consistent with the use of that word in mathematics teaching. Examples include ‘line’, ‘range’ and ‘histogram’ (constructing and interpreting graphs was a particular area of concern for science teachers).
Developing Cambridge IGCSE™ Biology Chemistry and Physics Maths Skills Workbooks
The Language of Mathematics in Science materials were produced as a reference guide for teachers, rather than students. Teachers were expected to use their professional judgement to decide if, when and how they should introduce the mathematical skills within the guidance booklet to practise in science lessons.
Through a collaboration with ASE, Cambridge University Press has converted ASE’s guidance for teachers into workbooks for students, putting the mathematical skills into subject discipline (biology, chemistry and physics) contexts rather than in more general scientific contexts.The workbook author team are ASE members with significant expertise in developing GCSE resources in their individual subject disciplines. The authors followed an agreed template for consistency but then used their subject expertise to decide how much focus to place on each skill, depending on the requirements of different science disciplines. For example, the physics workbook places an emphasis on measurement, units, calculations and working with numbers, while the biology workbook has greater emphasis on graphing.
How the workbooks improve learning outcomes in science by developing mathematics skills
The maths skills workbooks support students by providing guidance on the language, techniques and skills to use when dealing with different mathematical ideas in scientific contexts.
The workbooks also help teachers to plan and refine their teaching. In addition, they are an effective support for teachers who are not confident at addressing some of the mathematical ideas required by their course specification. The approaches used in the workbooks mirror those in The Language of Mathematics in Science, such as introducing standard form, in ways that promote understanding and avoid recognised misconceptions.
How the maths skills workbooks align with the project
Structure and sequencing of ideas
The workbooks adopt a similar sequencing of ideas used in The Language of Mathematics in Science guidance (data collection; data display; data interpretation; calculations and mathematics in the real world). The Language of Mathematics in Science guidance has coherent threads of ideas running through the text, but these ideas are not hierarchical, and imply no specific sequence of teaching. Similarly, the workbooks have a common structure, but the content chapters could be used by students in any appropriate sequence.
Terminology
The workbooks contain a useful glossary of terms that appear in bold. They cover the more commonly used terminology that appears in The Language of Mathematics in Science, as well as some of the terms described in Language of Measurement. The definitions used have been adapted to be more age appropriate to school students.
Mathematical content
The mathematical content in each of the workbooks is similar, but the contexts used in each of the disciplines is very different. Let’s look at an example of using chapter 1 to develop measurement skills: the biology workbook could be used as an introduction to the skill, and then this could be reinforced using the physics workbook that looks at the topic in more depth. Coordinating the use of these workbooks across the three science disciplines would be of significant benefit to students, enabling them to develop a detailed and confident approach to the use of mathematical skills in science.
We are delighted to have been able to collaborate with ASE on these series of workbooks and benefit from their extensive research. If you are interested in the series, please follow the links below to find out more.
Listen to our podcast with Richard Needham, past Chair of Association for Science Education (ASE) and Tom Rainbow, an Education Support Specialist who works for the Advanced Maths Support Programme to explore how to improve maths skills for science.
Discover our webinar ‘Developing Maths and English Language Skills for Cambridge IGCSE Science’ with Dr. Mark Winterbottom and Sally Burbeary.
