EUS-BC

The aim of this project is to contribute to understanding causes of difficulties experienced by first-time university students in science courses that use mathematics. We are interested in the misunderstandings between teachers and students concerning study and teaching practices that promote learning, and postulate that these may result from gaps between the beliefs and expectations of students and teachers. These beliefs and expectations may relate to transversal aspects that are independent of the disciplines, or to aspects linked with the subject studied; we hypothesise that they may differ according to gender. Considering that the process of acculturation to university depends both on the context of study but and on the knowledge at stake, we combine sociological, psychological and didactic approaches (in experimental sciences and mathematics) within the educational sciences. Our study is based on a theoretical framework that combines in particular the concept of beliefs with that of the didactic contract, which is a system of mostly implicit expectations. We are interested in the gaps between students' and teachers' beliefs and expectations, and in the changes in students' beliefs and expectations during the first year of university. We have three related aims with regard to these gaps and changes: (1) to identify them; (b) to identify the specific features of certain groups of teachers and students (according to discipline and gender in particular); (c) to explain some of the changes and gaps that remain at the end of the first year by situational and/or individual factors (in particular gendered socialisation pathways). Our survey will adopt a mixed methodology. We will carry out an initial phase of observations of sessions and interviews with teachers and students (the target disciplines are biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics as a service discipline in the experimental science streams). This initial qualitative phase and our previous work will enable us to identify possible gaps between students and teachers, and to design questionnaires for students and their teachers targeting these gaps. In a second, quantitative phase, we will administer a questionnaire to students at the start of their first year at university, and then to the same students at the end of their first year (3,400 students). We will also administer a questionnaire to their experimental science and mathematics teachers (300 teachers). Finally, a third phase of observations and interviews will expand on the results obtained by analysing the questionnaire responses. This will enable us to identify the gaps between teachers’ and students’ beliefs and expectations, how they evolve during the first year of study, and the situational and/or individual factors that lead to these gaps diminishing or persisting, and therefore favouring or not the establishment of a shared didactic contract between teachers and students during the first year of university.