ArticleCBE life sciences education2017
Do Biology Students Really Hate Math? Empirical Insights into Undergraduate Life Science Majors' Emotions about Mathematics.
Article in CBE life sciences education, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
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- A scoping review of interventions on middle school students' attitudes towards science.PloS one · 2025Article
- Biology Students' Math and Computer Science Task Values Are Closely Linked.CBE life sciences education · 2022Article
- Measuring Attitude toward Chemistry, Biology, and Math at a Hispanic-Serving Institution.Journal of chemical education · 2022Article
- The Conceptualization of Quantitative Reasoning among Introductory Biology Faculty.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2021Article
- Overcoming the Challenges to Enhancing Experimental Plant Biology With Computational Modeling.Frontiers in plant science · 2021Review
- Combining Microbial Culturing With Mathematical Modeling in an Introductory Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience.Frontiers in microbiology · 2020Article
- One Size Doesn't Fit All: Using Factor Analysis to Gather Validity Evidence When Using Surveys in Your Research.CBE life sciences education · 2019Article
- Life Science Majors' Math-Biology Task Values Relate to Student Characteristics and Predict the Likelihood of Taking Quantitative Biology Courses.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Undergraduate life science majors are reputed to have negative emotions toward mathematics, yet little empirical evidence supports this. We sought to compare emotions of majors in the life sciences versus other natural sciences and math. We adapted the Attitudes toward the Subject of Chemistry Inventory to create an Attitudes toward the Subject of Mathematics Inventory (ASMI). We collected data from 359 science and math majors at two research universities and conducted a series of statistical tests that indicated that four AMSI items comprised a reasonable measure of students' emotional satisfaction with math. We then compared life science and non-life science majors and found that major had a small to moderate relationship with students' responses. Gender also had a small relationship with students' responses, while students' race, ethnicity, and year in school had no observable relationship. Using latent profile analysis, we identified three groups-students who were emotionally satisfied with math, emotionally dissatisfied with math, and neutral. These results and the emotional satisfaction with math scale should be useful for identifying differences in other undergraduate populations, determining the malleability of undergraduates' emotional satisfaction with math, and testing effects of interventions aimed at improving life science majors' attitudes toward math.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.