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International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and

Technology
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The effect of an interdisciplinary algebra/science course on students'

problem solving skills, critical thinking skills and attitudes towards
mathematics
Brett Elliott; Karla Oty; John McArthur; Bryon Clark

To cite this Article Elliott, Brett, Oty, Karla, McArthur, John and Clark, Bryon(2001) 'The effect of an interdisciplinary
algebra/science course on students' problem solving skills, critical thinking skills and attitudes towards mathematics',
International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 32: 6, 811 816
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00207390110053784
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207390110053784

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 int. j. math. educ. sci. technol., 2001, vol. 32, no. 6, 811 816

The eect of an interdisciplinary algebra/science course on

students problem solving skills, critical thinking skills and
attitudes towards mathematics

BRETT ELLIOTT*, KARLA OTY*, JOHN MCARTHUR** and BRYON

CLARK***
* Department of Mathematics, ** Department of Computer Science and Technology and
*** Department of Biological Sciences, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant,
OK 74701, USA; e-mail: belliott@sosu.edu

(Received 20 April 2000 )

This paper briey describes a newly designed interdisciplinary course called

`Algebra for the Sciences that is currently taught at Southeastern Oklahoma
State University. The eects that the course had on students critical thinking
skills, problem-solving skills, and attitudes towards mathematics were studied.
The traditional college algebra course was used as a control group. The rst
Downloaded At: 22:28 6 January 2010

semester that the new course was taught, students were randomly placed into
one of Algebra for the Sciences or College Algebra. The study lasted for two
semesters and a total of eight course sections were usedfour sections of the
experimental course and four sections of the college algebra course. No
signicant dierence was found in problem-solving skills between students in
the interdisciplinary course and students in the college algebra course. Students
in the interdisciplinary course had slightly larger gains in critical thinking and
signicantly more positive attitudes at the end of the course than the students in
college algebra.

1. Introduction
Interdisciplinary studies have generated much interest in recent years. In the
past, dierent subjects were usually taught as though they were isolated from one
another and had nothing in common. Now two or more subjects are often
combined into a single interdisciplinary course. For example, Ashland University
has a course called Science as a Cultural Force [1] that can be taken for chemistry or
philosophy credit. Some universities even oer degrees in interdisciplinary studies
[2, 3]. Because of its usefulness as a tool, mathematics has been paired with many
dierent disciplines including art, business, physics, chemistry, biology, and
environmental engineering [4]. In Interdisciplinary Teaching: Why & How [5,
p. 1] Gordon Vars says that in recent years `interest in interdisciplinary teaching
and curriculum has increased exponentially. With all of this interest in inter-
disciplinary courses, it is natural to ask what eect these courses have on students.
This study focuses on an interdisciplinary course called `Algebra for the
Sciences that was developed at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. Of
particular interest is the eect that this course has on students critical thinking
skills, problem-solving skills, and attitudes towards mathematics. A traditional
college algebra course was used as a control group.

International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology

ISSN 0020739X print/ISSN 14645211 online # 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/00207390110053784
 812 B. Elliott et al.

This new interdisciplinary course is dierent from college algebra in that

science topics lead to corresponding mathematics topics and modelling is fre-
quently used. The science topics may be introduced by way of an experiment or by
faculty from various scientic disciplines appearing as guest lecturers. For
instance, a session on logarithms begins with a physicist leading a discussion on
sound. Then the students participate in an experiment where dierent numbers of
doorbells are rung and the decibels are recorded. These points (number of
doorbells rung vs. total decibels) are then plotted and an attempt is made to nd
a model that describes the data. The students soon discover that none of the
previous models covered (linear, quadratic, exponential) are appropriate in this
situation and that a new type of equation is needed. This leads to a discussion of
logarithms by the mathematician. The other topics in the course are introduced in
a similar manner. At the conclusion of each topic, each student is assigned an
interdisciplinary project. For more information about the particulars of the course
see [6].

2. Methodology
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2.1. Subjects
This study was conducted at the university in the spring and fall semesters of
1998. A total of eight classes were usedfour classes of the interdisciplinary course
and four classes of the traditional college algebra. All classes were taught by the
rst two authors of this paper with guest lectures by the other two authors.
In the course schedule in the spring of 1998 there were two sections listed as
College Algebra. Approximately fty students were allowed into each of these
courses. On the rst day of class, half of the students from each section were
chosen at random (using a random number generator) to participate in the new
Algebra for the Sciences course. They were not told that the course was dierent
from the traditional college algebra course and the two instructors were careful to
continue referring to the course as College Algebra. In the course schedule in the
fall of 1998 there were two sections of College Algebra and two sections of Algebra
for the Sciences listed. This time students were able to choose which course they
wanted to take.
Altogether, this process resulted in a total beginning sample size of 211
students (118 in College Algebra, 93 in Algebra for the Sciences). Because of
the high dropout rate in freshman-level mathematics classes the ending sample size
was only 143 (75 in College Algebra and 68 in Algebra for the Sciences).
Of the 211 students at the beginning of the semester, 125 were female and 86
were male. There were 32 dierent majors represented with some of the more
common being Undecided (42), Elementary Education (29), Biology (21), Man-
agement (14), Conservation (11), Computer Science (10), Music (8), Electronics
(6), Health and Physical Education (6), Safety (6), Psychology (6), Sociology (5)
and Prepharmacy (5). The ethnic breakdown of the sample was 82% Caucasian,
11% Native American, 4% African-American, 2% Hispanic and 1% Asian; total
minority percentage was 18%. The mean age of the students in the sample was 21.4
and the median was 19.0. The mean Composite ACT score of the sample was 20.0.
This is slightly lower than the national mean of 21.0 [7]. The mean Math ACT
score of the sample was 17.9, considerably lower than the national mean of 20.8 for
 Eects on students of an interdisciplinary algebra/science course 813

all beginning freshmen [7] but probably about average for freshmen whose rst
math course for credit is an algebra course.

2.2. Instruments
To measure problem-solving skills, the two instructors asked common ques-
tions on the nals given in College Algebra and Algebra for the Sciences. These
questions were categorized and the percentage of students that answered the
questions completely correct or `almost completely correct was calculated. A
problem was graded as `almost completely correct if the student used an
appropriate procedure but made a careless mistake at some point in the problem,
such as an arithmetic mistake or a transcription error from one step to the next.
Comparisons using a t-test for proportions were made between students in the two
courses. The categories and subcategories were graphing (lines, quadratics,
exponentials and logarithms) and solving equations (linear, quadratic, exponential,
logarithmic and systems).
The instrument used for measuring critical thinking skills was the Watson
Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA). The WGCTA consists of 80
mutliple choice questions and takes 40 to 50 minutes to complete. It is divided
into ve subareas: Inference, Recognition of Assumptions, Deduction, Interpret-
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ation and Evaluation of Arguments. Each subarea contains 16 questions. The

WGCTA was chosen because of its consistency and reliability and because it is
considered the `bench mark against which others must be compared [8]. Inde-
pendent t-tests were used to test for dierences in the critical thinking skills
between the students in the two courses.
To measure students attitudes towards mathematics, statements were used
from student evaluations given at the end of the semester in each course.
Percentages of students strongly agreeing, agreeing, undecided, disagreeing or
strongly disagreeing were calculated for each of ve statements. A Chi-square test
for independence was performed on each statement to test for dierences between
students in the two courses. The statements used were:
. This course has improved my attitude towards math.
. Math is important in life.
. I plan to take more math courses.
. The materials in this course are related to practical situations.
. I found this class to be interesting.

3. Results
No signicant dierences were found between students that had been ran-
domly placed into the two courses in the spring of 1998 and those that self-selected
in the fall of 1998. All other analyses were performed on the aggregate.

3.1. Problem-solving skills

Table 1 gives the percentage of students in each course that were completely
correct or `almost completely correct on the common problems placed on the
nals. As can be seen from table 1, the problem-solving skills of the two groups of
students were very similar. In fact, if the 0.05 level is used, no statistically
signicant dierences exist between the two groups in any of the categories.
However, two of the dierences were signicant at the 0.10 level. The College
 814 B. Elliott et al.

Algebra for Sciences College Algebra

Graphing
Lines 68 66
Quadratics 60 56
Exponentials 56 61
Logarithms 56 60
Solving equations
Linear 88 91
Quadratic 61 71
Exponential 35 49
Logarithmic 48 32
Linear Systems 80 78

Table 1. Percentage of students correct or almost correct.

Algebra students did better at solving exponential equations p 0:0752 and the
Algebra for the Sciences students did better at solving logarithmic equations
p 0:0883. The other dierence was solving logarithmic equations p 0:0883
in which the Algebra for the Sciences students did better. Since these two
dierences were in opposite directions, and because of the large number of t-
Downloaded At: 22:28 6 January 2010

tests performed, the tendency towards a Type I error is suciently large that little
signicance should be attributed to these dierences.
There were other areas of problem-solving that were not compared because
they were not covered in both of the courses. For instance, in the Algebra for the
Sciences course, estimation, geometry and regression were covered but those
topics were not discussed in College Algebra. Likewise, sequences and series
were covered in some sections of College Algebra but not in Algebra for the
Sciences.

3.2. Critical thinking skills

Table 2 gives the average overall critical thinking score of the students in each
course as well as the average scores for each subarea as measured at the end of the
semester. The overall scores ranged from 32 to 71 (with 80 possible) and the
subarea scores ranged from 1 to 16 (with 16 possible).
As can be seen from table 2, the students in Algebra for the Sciences had higher
critical thinking scores than the students in College Algebra for the overall score
and for each of the subscores. However, a statistically signicant dierence (at the
0.05 level) was found only on the Inference subscore p 0:0492. The dierences

Algebra for Sciences College Algebra

Overall score 52.3 49.8

Inference 8.4 7.7
Recognition of Assumptions 10.7 10.4
Deduction 10.2 9.5
Interpretation 11.4 11.1
Evaluation of Arguments 11.6 11.2

Table 2. Critical thinking scores.

 Eects on students of an interdisciplinary algebra/science course 815

Algebra for Sciences College Algebra

SA A U D SD SA A U D SD

1. This course has improved my 48 25 20 5 2 26 37 19 12 7

attitude towards math
2. Math is important in life 64 18 12 3 3 44 18 20 10 8
3. I plan to take more math courses 38 25 11 19 7 35 12 18 24 11
4. The materials in this course are 68 22 8 1 1 24 29 31 10 5
related to practical situations
5. I found this class to be 62 22 9 5 2 20 22 35 12 11
interesting

Note: Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding

Table 3. Percentage of agreement by course.

in the Overall score p 0:0687 and the Deduction subscore p 0:0995 are
statistically signicant at the 0.10 level.

3.3. Attitudes
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Table 3 gives the percentage of students in each course that strongly agreed
(SA), agreed (A), were undecided (U), disagreed (D) or strongly disagreed (SD) to
the statements placed on the student evaluations at the end of each course.
As can be seen from table 3, the students in Algebra for the Sciences had
signicantly more positive attitudes at the end of the semester than the students in
College Algebra. Overall, students in the Algebra for the Sciences course thought
their course was more interesting p < 0:005 and practical p < 0:005 than did
students in the College Algebra course. They also had better attitudes towards
math p < 0:05 at the end of the semester than students in the traditional course.
Although statistically nonsignicant, a greater proportion of students in Algebra
for the Sciences thought that math was important in life.

4. Summary
Previous studies have shown a positive relationship between students attitudes
towards mathematics and their performance in mathematics [9, 10]. Thus, one way
that we can attempt to improve a students performance is to improve their
attitude. Furthermore, we would like to improve their attitude as early in their
mathematics career as possible. College Algebra, the rst mathematics course in
college for many students, has not been successful in doing this. This study has
shown that an interdisciplinary course such as Algebra for the Sciences may be
more successful in achieving that goal. By doing interdisciplinary projects,
students begin to believe that mathematics is useful, important and even interest-
ing. This increased interest may be `more important than their perceived math
ability in determining whether they study more mathematics [11]. At the same
time, their problem-solving skills and critical thinking skills are not compromised.
This study is ongoing in that the students from the two courses will now be
tracked through their later mathematics courses. Of interest will be whether the
improved attitudes of students from Algebra for the Sciences translates into them
enrolling in more subsequent mathematics courses than their counterparts from
 816 Eects on students of an interdisciplinary algebra/science course

College Algebra. The performance of the two groups in these subsequent math-
ematics classes will also be compared.

Acknowledgements
The work described in this article was supported by grant #DUE-9652867
from the Division of Undergraduate Education of the National Science Founda-
tion for the Course and Curriculum Development Program. However, the views
expressed are not necessarily those of either the Foundation or the Project.

References
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Mathematical Society (Providence, RI: AMS), pp. 213218.
[5] Vars, G. F., 1993, Interdisciplinary Teaching: Why & How (Columbus, OH: National
Middle School Association), p. 1.
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