Trends in Attendance and Queries in a Single Maths Support Helproom

Abstract

The ‘Hub’ at the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Glasgow is a support help room for level 1 and 2 students, staffed by PGT students, PGRs, and course lecturers. Due to large cohort sizes, Glasgow has moved to a ‘team teaching’ model for lower-level courses in which each course has at least two lecturers. Given this, all office hours for level 1 and 2 classes take place within the Hub. Given the size of the pre-honours cohort and the large number of staff members of whom they can ask questions, it is difficult for any one staff member to glean an accurate picture of the areas in which students are struggling. In the current academic year, we asked Hub staffers to record the student number, course code, and question topic for each query asked of them in the Hub. Attendance data were recorded on a printed register by the staffer and later digitised by the investigator. These data were manually aggregated into a database and obvious errors corrected manually. From the details of approximately 1000 student queries, we seek trends on the impact of engagement on final grade, and to identify gaps in students’ knowledge.