declining participation – ��ճԹ� I Championing Mathematical Sciences for Australia’s Advancement

MEDIA RELEASE: Mathematics Enrolments Remain at All-Time Lows

media — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 00:00:13 +0000

The ��ճԹ� (��ճԹ�) has collected data on participation in mathematics subjects in Year 12 for many years. Collecting enrolment data in individual maths subjects is crucial to know at what level students study mathematics in Year 12, to know how prepared they are for tertiary study. What the ��ճԹ� Year 12 Mathematics Participation Report Card released today continues to show is that the maths participation in Year 12 remains at all-time lows.

Read the report card here

In the last decade, Year 12 enrolments in calculus-based mathematics subjects remained stable – albeit at a low level – as a proportion of all students who complete high school exams. However, any hope of improving enrolment numbers has faded, as the three most recent years of data show that enrolments are at much lower levels than previously seen.

The STEM industry depends on early adolescence appreciating the value of mathematics as a career and life aspiration.

The participation report highlights:

Year 12 participation in calculus-based mathematics has plummeted to an all-time low in the last three years
The participation of girls in higher mathematics also remains low: only 6.4% of year 12 girls studied higher mathematics in 2022
Enrolments in elementary level mathematics (Essential and General Mathematics) are also declining. In 2022, less than half of the year 12 graduating cohort (45.8%) studied an elementary level mathematics subject

��ճԹ� Director, Professor Tim Marchant said the findings of this research show that the STEM pipeline is fundamental to the economic development, industrial growth and success of our country.

“Year 12 enrolments in calculus-based mathematics subjects remain at all time lows and have not returned to the levels seen pre-COVID. These low enrolment levels will impact Australia’s capacity to meet future STEM workforce needs,” Professor Marchant said.

The findings are part of the Discipline Profile Report, which will be released mid-2024.

Fewer Australians are taking advanced maths in Year 12 — we can learn from countries doing it better

Michael — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 22:59:48 +0000

Maths achievement scores for Australian 15-16 year-olds have shown steady decline since 2003. Perhaps even more concerning is that the ranking-gap between Australia and top performing countries is widening.

Research and commentary from USQ’s Linda Galligan and Megan Axelsen, and the University of Melbourne’s Deborah King in .

A showed about one quarter of Year 12 students did not take any Higher School Certificate (HSC) maths courses over the last decade. This was compared to around 6% students who opted out of HSC maths in 2000.

In Queensland, show nearly one-third of senior students drop out of the intermediate mathematical methods subject, which includes algebra and calculus. The number of Year 11 students choosing the easiest maths subject (not automatically counted towards the ATAR), essential mathematics, has soared by 45% this year — from 12,687 in 2019 to 18,431 in 2020.

Because of the move towards automation, some recent note 75% of the fastest growing occupations will require high-level skills in STEM (science, maths, engineering and technology). But studies consistently show in Australia, participation in secondary school advanced maths continues to decline.

Although national participation rates in Year 12 maths subjects are still high — at around 80% — the proportion of students choosing advanced (calculus-based) maths subjects has declined sharply in the last 20 years. In every year of the last decade, fewer than 30% of students chose intermediate or higher mathematics.

Changes at university level aren’t enough

Strategies designed to improve participation in maths include reintroducing maths for certain areas of university study (such as engineering) and offering for students who have done advanced maths. The government’s recent job-ready graduates legislation will also make .

These strategies all focus on improving the flow to tertiary education.

But students’ engagement with maths, including their level of achievement and attitude to its importance, are than senior secondary school. This means the impact of the above initiatives may not be as effective as intended.

Recent shows the University of Sydney’s reintroduction of prerequisites for a wide range of their degrees has failed to shift the dial significantly for falling enrolments in HSC mathematics.

A by the Australian Council for Educational Research, suggested that, for the Group of Eight universities in the study, most students entering science degrees had in fact completed an appropriate level of maths even though they weren’t required to.

What about other countries?

It is hard to get standardised data useful for comparing Australian and international participation in upper level, high school maths. There are differences in curriculum structures and content across and within countries.

For example, comparing participation in countries where maths is compulsory until the end of school, for example, ,to those where it is not, makes little sense.

Maths is compulsory until the end of school in many countries.

Some interesting comparisons, however, can still be made. , where maths is not compulsory, only 19% of students who completed high school in 2013 took calculus-based courses.

The United Kingdom, after was in serious decline, launched a national campaign to reverse the trend. This included a £67 million initiative to improve teacher supply in maths and physics. While there was some improvement after the campaign, almost three-quarters of students who achieved good marks in maths still chose not to study it after the age of 16.

Participation rates in higher level maths can predict the number of tertiary STEM graduates and the future of the STEM workforce. But strong levels of achievement in maths earlier in the school years are essential to feed the pipeline.

Maths achievement scores for Australian 15-16 year olds, based on international comparative reports — such as the Programme for International Student Assessment and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study — have shown steady decline since 2003. Perhaps even more concerning is that the ranking-gap between Australia and top performing countries is widening.

In recent TIMSS , which also provide information about students’ attitudes to maths, Australian Year 8 students place almost the same value on maths as their international peers. But a striking difference in attitude emerges from the data — Australian students are significantly less satisfied and engaged with maths than their international peers.

Half of our students don’t like maths, compared to 38% of students in other countries. About one-quarter of our students find maths teaching unengaging, compared to 17% for international students.

What can we do?

Australia can look to successful strategies overseas.

, the highest ranked European country for maths in PISA in 2018, has small classes and almost no high-stakes tests for school children, leaving more time for instruction.

In Australia, the introduction of NAPLAN has resulted in no perceivable improvement in student . NAPLAN has come under , particularly around the amount of valuable class time that may be devoted to NAPLAN style tasks.

Australia needs to concentrate on high-quality student instruction not testing, and improving attitudes to, and engagement in, mathematics.

Australia has one of the highest rates of out-of-field teaching (teaching outside field of expertise) in in the world. Only in the United States, Brazil and Australia does this occur on a large scale. And it appears to be worse in Australia than the United States.

Over half of school principals in 2017 reported they had maths and science classes being taught by teachers who weren’t fully qualified in the discipline. Research has also found 22% of Australian Year 8 students were taught by out-of-field teachers, compared to an international average of 13%.

The Australian government has tried to close this gap by providing A$9.5 million for professional learning and from primary to secondary school. But more funding needs to be directed towards out-of-field maths teachers in higher year levels to reach international standards.

In Ireland, for example, about has been committed towards professional development for out-of-field maths teachers in the post-primary years.

Australian maths curricula are ambitious, including a strong emphasis on calculus. And they have recently expanded the amount of statistics included at upper year levels.

has looked to successful STEM-education countries like Singapore. Half of its primary schools will adopt their model of deep learning of maths. This moves away from simple rote learning to focus on teaching children how to problem solve. It also covers fewer topics in far greater depth.

Whatever strategies Australia adopts over the next decade to improve maths participation for school children, all levels of education must be involved and include teacher professional development.

, Associate professor, ; , Director, Bachelor of Science, , and , Researcher,

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

Maths enrolments at school still as bad as ever

Michael — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 00:46:19 +0000

Australia’s “maths deficit” at school is deepening and becoming a spiral in which the lack of maths graduates is reinforcing the lack of teachers with specialist training in the subject.

Robert Bolton on ��ճԹ�’s ‘State of the Mathematical Sciences’ with commentary from Maaike Wienk in the .

Maths, science push for girls sees tech stars lead the way

��ճԹ� — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 02:53:41 +0000

Article by , , 1 August 2015

When Ashley Holloway walked into her first computer programming course at university, the lecturer asked if she was lost.

“There were guys everywhere, staring at me like they’d never seen a girl before,’’ Ms Holloway said. “The lecturer actually asked me if I was in the right place.’’

The 23-year-old “geek girl’’ now lives in London, working as a digital project manager for the luxury fashion label Burberry. Along with astrobiologist Abigail Allwood — an Australian-born NASA scientist who is the first woman to lead a mission to Mars — she hopes more teenage girls will study maths and science.

Girls are only half as likely as boys to study advanced maths at high school, locking them out of some of the most financially lucrative and family-flexible jobs in the knowledge economy.

Men are three times more likely than women to graduate with a tertiary qualification in a STEM discipline — science, technology, engineering or maths.

Dr Allwood, who studied geoscience at the Queensland University of Technology, has always aimed for the stars. As a girl growing up in Brisbane, she was obsessed with space travel, planets and science fiction.

Now she is the only woman among seven scientists leading the next NASA Rover mission to Mars in 2020, to look for evidence of ancient life on the Red Planet.

“Who would have thought I could have a career doing something this fun?’’ Dr Allwood said yesterday. “Girls have a picture of scientists in lab coats, rote learning — not of exploring space and travelling to other countries for conferences and meeting really interesting people.’’

Dr Allwood is concerned that cuts to research funding and job losses at the CSIRO give bright young Australians little incentive to study STEM subjects.

“The country invests all this money in educating people, and a lot of them go overseas and we may never see them back,’’ she said. “It certainly can’t be good for the economy. The best source of inspiration for young Australians to pursue STEM careers would be the promise of a really cool STEM job, here in Australia.’’

At NASA, Dr Allwood will analyse the chemistry of Martian rocks gathered by the Rover robot during its 2020 space mission.

As the principal investigator for PIXL, the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, she is the first woman to co-lead on a Mars mission. “At NASA, you are judged on your intellectual contribution,’’ she said.

“It doesn’t matter about your gender, your race, what you’re wearing or how weird you are.’’

Ms Holloway also attended QUT, graduating last year with a double degree in information technology and creative industries. She was one of only two women in her cohort studying IT.

“IT is so male-dominated,’’ she said yesterday. “Guys didn’t want me in their group, but I ended up beating them all and getting an academic excellence award.

“At Burberry, most of the project managers are women — they deliver, they’re headstrong, they know what they want and they’re very ambitious.’’

Ms Holloway, who visited her alma mater of Brisbane Girls Grammar School yesterday, said teenage girls were often interested in graphic design but did not realise the greater career potential of an IT degree.

“When people think of IT they think it’s a tedious desk job where people call and you say: ‘Have you tried turning it off and on again?’ ’’ she said.

“But it can result in a wide range of career paths for app and web development, or marketing.’’

At Brisbane Girls Grammar, 14 per cent of students are studying advanced maths and 22 per cent are undertaking technology studies, double the national rate.

Year 12 student Brianna Kerr, 16, is aiming for a hi-tech career. “I started playing video games as a six-year-old with my brother and I’ve grown up with technology, so I want to get working behind the scenes,’’ she said.

Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute director Geoff Prince said the number of Australian pupils studying advanced maths at school had dropped to “a dangerously low level’’.

State and territory governments are drafting a new STEM strategy for schools, after federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne pushed for maths or science to be made compulsory in high school.

The government will also force all new primary school teachers to specialise in science, maths or a language.

declining participation – ���ճԹ� I Championing Mathematical Sciences for Australia’s Advancement