Discoveries
Since 2016, the Keep in School Shape (KiSS) Program has offered university students opportunities to review mathematics during academic breaks. Along the way, we've been investigating not only what students remember, but also how they engage with voluntary review.
What happens when students encounter a problem they don't know how to solve? How accurately do they judge their own understanding? And when given choices, how much mathematics do they choose to practice?
Across our studies, we've uncovered some interesting patterns in students' confidence, performance, and problem-solving decisions. Here are a few of our discoveries!
Students choose to do more than one problem!
When students engage with KiSS, they often choose to complete several problems during their daily math workout. In Winter 2023–24, students completed approximately 60% of the available problems, regardless of whether they started at Level 1 or Level 2. This pattern was remarkably similar across confidence levels, with even the least confident students completing comparable proportions of the available problems.
Students are pretty good judges of what they recall!
How well do students know what they know? In Winter 2023–24, students who expressed greater confidence in their ability to solve a problem were more likely to answer correctly. Even students who reported being "super duper" confident weren't always right, though! These findings highlight the relationship between students' confidence and their mathematical performance.
Students want to get things right!
Getting a problem wrong doesn't necessarily mean giving up! In Winter 2023–24, students frequently chose to use a hint and try again after an incorrect Level 1 response. This was particularly common among students who expressed greater confidence in their ability to solve the problem. Students with lower confidence were more likely to view the solution instead. These choices offer a glimpse into how students use the support and feedback available during their daily math workouts.
Students feel more ready for their next course!
How prepared do students feel when they're about to begin their next mathematics course? In Winter 2024–25, students reported greater readiness after participating in KiSS, with the largest improvements among those who initially felt least prepared. These findings, based on 71 students, suggest that voluntary mathematics review may help students approach their next course with greater confidence.
More students kept up their math workouts!
How consistently do students participate in KiSS throughout an academic break? Comparing Winter 2023–24 and Winter 2024–25, we found that a larger proportion of students participated on more than 75% of the available days in the later implementation, while fewer participated on only a small fraction of days.
Digital badges were introduced between these implementations, but other factors may also have contributed to this shift. Understanding what encourages students to return regularly is an important focus of our ongoing research.
The Research Continues
The discoveries highlighted here are just part of the story! With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), we're building on years of KiSS research to investigate how voluntary mathematics review during academic breaks relates to students' learning and subsequent success.
Our ongoing research explores what encourages students to participate, how they engage with daily review activities, and what helps them keep coming back.
Explore the NSF KiSS Project to learn more about our research questions, studies, and emerging findings.