Teaching study skills in mathematics service courses—how to cope with students’ refusal?

Many freshmen entering university have difficulties with finishing their mathematics courses successfully in the first year due to insufficient study skills and learning strategies, which on the one hand include general skills and strategies and on the other hand context-specific skills and strategies for university mathematics. In mathematics service courses for students of disciplines other than mathematics, for example engineering or economics, the effect of poor study skills is even worse due to large course sizes and great diversity regarding the students’ prior knowledge. Therefore, since 2010, first-year students of economics at the University of Paderborn are offered a methodological support program named CAT, which is integrated into the regular course context. The name CAT emerges from three important support-tools of the program (called instruments): Checklist, Ampel (English: Traffic Lights), Toolbox. Although some students claimed that CAT was helpful from the beginning (and a positive effect on academic achievement had also been proven in an experimental tutorial) the majority of students did not use the strategies provided by CAT at first. This was the initial point for a research project with the aim to raise the acceptance of CAT and thus to get more students to use the effective study skills provided by CAT. With the help of this research project, it was possible to identify reasons why students did not use the skills and strategies of CAT, to draw adequate conclusions concerning the implementation of CAT in the course and to raise the acceptance of CAT considerably in the following year. The results of the research project can be useful especially for developers of similar support programs and for teachers and lecturers, who also try to integrate study skills into mathematics courses at university.