College Students vs. Mathematics: Why the Difficulties?

With a four-year $2.5 million grant, associate professor of psychology Paul Cirino is probing the minds of 1,000 Houston Community College students to find out where and why math stumbling blocks occur.

Anytime along a student’s travels through school, difficulties in math can arise for a variety of reasons that might include math-specific and other cognitive problems, lack of motivation, socioeconomic barriers and educational factors. Now with a four-year $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, University of Houston associate professor of psychology Paul Cirino is probing the minds of 1,000 Houston Community College students taking developmental or remedial math coursework to find out where the stumbling blocks occur.

Cirino is joined by an interdisciplinary team including research assistant professor Tammy Tolar, professor of computer science Ioannis Pavlidis, associate professors of education Jennifer Chauvot and Lyle McKinney, professor of mathematics Jiwen He, and several team members at Houston Community College.

Drs. Cirino, Tolar and Pavlidis are members of TIMES. Dr. Cirino’s lab is housed at TIMES.

Read more at: https://ssl.uh.edu/news-events/stories/2018/september-2018/091718-paul-cirino-math.php