The past decade or so has seen a huge growth in the number of mathematics support centres within UK higher education institutions as they come to terms with an increasing volume of students who are poorly prepared for the mathematical demands of their chosen courses. In other parts of the world we observe similar developments. In the early years many centres were short-lived enterprises staffed either by concerned volunteers who found a few hours in the week to offer additional support, or alternatively by part-time staff on short-term contracts. More recently, we have observed a trend to more substantial support centres many of which attract central funding and dedicated staff. Given this trend there is a need to ask whether our efforts are worthwhile, how we might know this, and whether we can justify ongoing funding. This talk by TONY CROFT from Loughborough University at the 3rd Irish Workshop on Mathematics Learning Support Centres, 2008, NUI Maynooth will describe some of the challenges associated with acquiring data on effectiveness. Various ways in which we can measure our success will be explored. Finally, several exemplars will be provided of work being undertaken to capture the sort of evidence required to secure continued funding of mathematics support centres.

Cheryl Voake, Lisa Taylor and Rob Wilson. (2013) Transition difficulties from FE to HE - What is the situation and what can we do about it? MSOR Connections, Volume 13, Issue 2: 6-14. DOI: 10.11120/msor.2013.00014 A common complaint from staff in Higher Education (HE) is that students arrive from Further Education (FE) providers with a lack of awareness of what to expect at university. This is manifested by an unpreparedness and, in some cases, an unwillingness for autonomous learning and self-responsibility. This study was designed to assess student awareness and preparedness for HE, with a particular focus on Mathematics. This was achieved via FE student and teacher questionnaires and a focus group, which crucially allowed judgement between studentsâ?? perceived awareness and their actual awareness. The focus group also gave FE students an opportunity to quiz HE students on their experiences and opinions, and gave the HE students the opportunity to provide information they felt was missing from their own transition to university.

It is often useful to rearrange, or transpose, a formula in order to write it in a different, but equivalent form. This unit explains the procedure for doing this. (Mathtutor Video Tutorial) This resource is released under a Creative Commons license Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works and the copyright is held by Skillbank Solutions Ltd.

A common mathematical problem is to find the angles or lengths of the sides of a triangle when some, but not all, of these quantities are known. It is also useful to be able to calculate the area of a triangle from some of this information. (Mathtutor Video Tutorial) This resource is released under a Creative Commons license Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works and the copyright is held by Skillbank Solutions Ltd.

In this mathtutor extention video, Alyson Stibbard explores triangular numbers, dicusses their properties and explains how to calculate them. This resource is released under a Creative Commons license Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works and the copyright is held by Skillbank Solutions Ltd.

In this unit we see how the three trigonometric ratios cosecant, secant and cotangent can appear in trigonometric identities and in the solution of trigonometric equations. Graphs of the functions are obtained from a knowledge of sine, cosine and tangent. (Mathtutor Video Tutorial) The video is released under a Creative Commons license Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works and the copyright is held by Skillbank Solutions Ltd.

Knowledge of the trigonometric ratios of sine, cosine and tangent is vital in very many fields of engineering, science and maths. This unit introduces them and provides examples of how they can be used to solve problems. (Mathtutor Video Tutorial) The video is released under a Creative Commons license Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works and the copyright is held by Skillbank Solutions Ltd.

The sine, cosine and tangent of an angle are all defined in terms of trigonometry, but they can also be expressed as functions. In this unit we examine these functions and their graphs. We also see how to restrict the domain of each function in order to define an inverse function. (Mathtutor Video Tutorial) The video is released under a Creative Commons license Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works and the copyright is held by Skillbank Solutions Ltd.

In this unit we consider trigonometric identities and how to use them to solve trigonometric equations. (Mathtutor Video Tutorial) The video is released under a Creative Commons license Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works and the copyright is held by Skillbank Solutions Ltd.

This leaflet lists a number of commonly used trigonometrical identities. (Engineering Maths First Aid Kit 4.4)

This leaflet explains the various types of force which are commonly found when studying the motion of physical bodies.

This leaflet summarises the SI system of units and commonly used prefixes.