Title : Mathematical Knowledge of Students who Aspire to Enroll in Engineering Programs

Author : Omar Cuevas, Victor Larios, Julia X.Peralta, Angelica R.Jimenez

Date of Article : Received 28 February 2018, Revised 19 June 2018, Accepted 8 July 2018
Page : 8
The tittle of the journal is “Mathematical Knowledge of Students who Aspire to
Enroll in Engineering Programs” . This journal is included research journal and created is a
research by Omar Cuevas, Victor Larios, Julia X.Peralta, and Angelica R.Jimenez at Institute
Tecnologico de Sonora and Universitas Autonoma de Queretaro. The writer explains that In a
person's learning process will be educated from the lowest level to the most high level.
During the process, one must have experienced the transition. This transition period will
provide a lot of experience in the process of learning. From the moment they had to
experience failure and had to rise again, failing again and rising again, and until they will
achieve real success. Then this struggle should continue to the higher level of education. But
before continuing his education, there must be great consideration to determine the choice of
the university that will be later travelled. Because every choice taken must be adapted to
existing capabilities in order to minimize students who do not graduate because of their
deteriorating achievements at the end of their semester. so to avoid things that are not
desirable, one must be able to harmonize the knowledge that has been obtained with new
knowledge. namely by expanding previous knowledge, detecting shortcomings and
difficulties, and preventing insignificant knowledge. Knowledge that was previously obtained
is very much. Before adding new knowledge, prior knowledge must be mastered. For
example, basic science in learning is mathematics. However, even though mathematics is a
basic science, many students lack mastery. Therefore, an examination is held to find out how
much students understand this knowledge. The exam is conducted by providing multiple
choice examinations. This multiple choice test is not very helpful in honing one's field of
knowledge, because most of them use guesses when given a multiple choice question.
Therefore one of the universities in Mexico, the Tecnologico de Sonora Institute, offers
candidates to get the tests provided by the campus. They are not just guessing at working on
the questions, but they are really given questions that need to be considered. Both about
algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. This type of exam is used for students who will learn
about engineering in 2016 and 2017. This exam is held for the needs of student knowledge.
So we can think of weaknesses and solutions to overcome them.
 Therefore, the campus conducted research on this issue. They took a sample of 1922
students who entered in 2016 and 1184 students who entered in 2017. All students were 17 to
19 years old. These students consist of students who will take engineering programs and
students who have not graduated in the mathematics basics course. Those who take the
engineering program will take a knowledge-based exam and those who have not graduated
will be held special classes for 15 weeks. For students taking knowledge-based exams, the
mathematics department of Institute De Sonora provides 36 items for students who enroll in
2016 and 21 items for students who enroll in 2017. Both items consist of several discussions
in mathematics. Including Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Geometry
Analytics, and Differential Calculus and others. The items have been randomly selected for
each level with the following procedure: 1. the number of items used in each test has been
determined, both for 2016 and 2017. 2. The exam given in 2016 is a face-to-face exam in the
classroom. 3. The exams given in 2017 are online based exams.
Two kinds of research tests have been conducted. the first study was aimed at students
starting from the first semester to the end. While the second research was aimed at students
from elementary school to students from high school. The results of the first study were the
highest percentage of correct answers from 2016 and 2017 when they took semesters 4 and 5.
While the results of the second study were large differences between 2016 and 2017 in
middle schools. Although when compared results between groups, there are significant
results. but there are still causes that have an impact on results. The causes include low
performance levels and gender differences. Other than that, every item of the question given
is also not necessarily resolved perfectly. Because most of the students only understand the
basics of their knowledge but are weak in practice questions. As in answering arithmetic
questions, brands only understand theory. so the resulting answer is not satisfactory. Besides
arithmetic there are also many materials that are not completely resolved. There are
numerical operations with fractions, factoring, 3x3 equation systems, operations with
algebraic fractions, linear equations, circumference, ellipsis, parabolas, hyperbolas,
trigonometric derivatives, logarithmic derivatives, exponential derivatives, maximums and
minimums of a polynomial and limits of a function. while items that can be solved are only a
few items. There are conversion systems (feet to meters), system of 2x2 equations and those
derived from a polynomial.
Based on the exams that have been given to those who will take the engineering
program, students from 2017 get a higher score than in 2016. This is probably due to their
more mature preparation or because of differences in the problem-solving technique. Groups
from 2017 can be more calm in working on the problem, because they are working remotely.
So they can think longer before answering. While groups from 2017 are more nervous
because they have to deal directly with the examiners. However, even though the group from
2017 has a higher score than the group in 2016, both of them still have low scores compared
to other schools. Because their level of difficulty is the same, namely about algebraic
material. Material about algebra is indeed very broad, because most of their success is
supported by how much they master algebra. Because in algebra it is explained how they
understand a more complex concept for a problem in a technical program.