Difficulties In Learning Numerical Sequence And Series:A Case Study Of Engineering Students At A Technical And Vocational School In Mali

All facets of the engineering academic field require students to transfer mathematical knowledge from introductory mathematics courses into engineering courses.One of the most relevant mathematical elements engineering students learn is sequence and series.Literature indicates that many engineering students do not clearly understand the concept of sequence and series.Students demonstrate a poor understanding of the difference between a sequence and a series as well as determining whether a series was convergent or not.Considering that its study is set to analyze difficulties associated with the learning of the introductory concept of sequence and series among the three target streams of civil industrial and mining engineering students of the normal school of technical and vocational education in Mali.The study aimed to collecting data from the teachers and the students at Normal School of Vocational and Technical Education(ENETP),which is a public higher education institution;three targeted classes are classes where numerical series are taught as a teaching module(Analysis 2 module)at ENETP:Civil Engineering(CE),Industrial Engineering(IE),Mining Engineering(ME).The study sampled a total of 7 teachers and 379 students for the purpose of the study.To analyze the data,simple Excel tabulation was used for data entry and processing which was simple and convenient.Results of this study indicate that in general,students experience several difficulties in learning numerical series.The study discovered several factors that contribute to these difficulties which include lack of teachers to teach the concept,inexperience,and unprofessional teachers,lack of proper prior knowledge as regards to students,negative attitude towards the concepts.Some of them are teacher-related while others are studentrelated.Furthermore,some factors are system-oriented which are neither in control of teachers themselves nor students.Taking into account important aspects in learning and teaching and the difficulties associated with teaching and learning the series noted in this study,teachers,and students need to be aware that these factors affect students learning,therefore,a proper diagnosis of the problem might help mitigate the challenges faced by students.This can not only be on teachers’ and students’ shoulders,but also on government and various NGOs whose major concern is education.For this reason,researchers are encouraged to consider further research around the concept of series to make the concept more accessible or its teaching/learning easier with less difficulty.