Instructional Delivery and Students’ Experiences with Distance and Online Learning of Undergraduate Mathematics in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the students’ experiences with instructional delivery (ID) of distance and online learning of undergraduate mathematics in two major Nigerian universities. Purposive sampling was used in the study to select mathematics students from University of Lagos Distance Learning Institute (DLI) and the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). Data were collected through mixed-methods and a one-sample binomial test was employed to analyse the quantitative data. Furthermore, narrative and content analyses were done to explore how respondents make sense of their experiences of learning mathematics through the distance and online mode. Among others, the results of the study suggest that the abstract nature of mathematics was not appropriately addressed in the course content and that the absence of helpful and visible tutors for the subject complicated the challenge of understanding abstract mathematics even further. Among the many challenges, the abstract nature of mathematics and the absence of qualified tutors points to the need for improvement in the design, development, and provision of mathematics course materials and programmes for distance and online mathematics learning.

Keywords

• instructional delivery
• distance and online learning
• undergraduate mathematics