How Does the Teaching Design Influence Engineering Students’ Learning of Mathematical Modelling? A Case Study in a South African Context

This chapter reports on empirical results about the influence of two different teaching designs on the development of engineering mathematics students’ modelling competency. 144 first-year students were exposed to a modelling unit (entrance test, pre-test, five lessons with ten tasks, post-test) following two teaching designs, similar to the German DISUM study. One group of participants was offered an independence-oriented teaching style, aiming at a balance between students’ independent work and teacher’s guidance, while two other groups were taught according to a more traditional teacher-guided style. Linear mixed regression models were used to compare pre- and post-test results. The results show that all groups had significant learning progress and that the group taught according to the independence-oriented design had the biggest competency growth.