Analysis on Mathematics Fundamental Knowledge for Mathematics Engineering Courses based on a Comparative Study of Students’ Entry Performance

Entrants to engineering undergraduate degree courses in all higher institutions in Malaysia, who had undertaking pre-university programme such as Matriculation, Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (STPM), Asasi Sains, Fundamental Study or Diploma, had studied mathematics and physics as a pre-requisite. Consequently, it is crucial to understand the level of mathematics knowledge that a student acquired upon entry to undergraduate engineering programme particularly on that subjects. This understanding will help lecturers to improve students’ performance by constructing a suitable first year curriculum and to ascertain whether a student would benefit from additional support. In this paper, data from Pre-Test for academics session 2008/2009 and 2009/2010, which was given to the first semester of first year students, at Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment (FKAB), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) are used to illustrate how students’ entry performance have changed. Questions on Pre-Test covered on elementary mathematical concepts such as functions and graphs, differentiation, integration, vectors and etc. The objective of this study is to identify the mathematical topics which are considered difficult and challenging by the students. The study also exhibits the performance shown by the male and female students and to identify topics where they get the best performance. The findings showed that the students were lack of knowledge in certain important topics in mathematics, which is a core subject in engineering study.