Abstract

Mathematics learning support centres (MLSC) are widely established and evaluated in English-speaking countries (such as the UK, Ireland and Australia). In most of these countries, several national surveys on MLSCs exist. They give an overview of the number of MLSCs as well as their characteristics in these countries. In Germany, there is a lack of studies on MLSCs and the landscape of MLSCs has not been described yet. This article presents basic information concerning counts of MLSCs and their characteristics at universities. Based on a three-step approach of analysing university homepages and additional personal contact via email or phone calls, we gathered typical MLSC features (e.g. staff quantities and qualification, opening and support hours, supported study programmes). We analysed 190 universities from a web-based register on study programmes. In total, we found 61 MLSCs located at 51 German universities. Another 16 support centres were specialized on mathematics didactics, which means they focussed on didactical and methodological support for preservice teacher students and often provided different teaching materials. Thirty-eight centres were located at universities (62.3%) and 23 MLSCs at universities of applied sciences and comparable universities (37.7%). The MLSCs were different in their sizes of staff and opening hours, and both the numbers of staff and the service hours differed greatly. The student groups MLSCs at German universities focus on differ concerning characteristics like study programme or semester. We will provide the main categories describing these groups. We seek to answer research questions concerning the characteristics of MLSCs in Germany and discuss the results compared to international findings. This information is useful for further international collaborative research, for example a standardized international survey. From a national perspective, these findings support networking and collaborations between the MLSCs as well. As some German MLSCs are facing financial cuts, these results might help in gaining additional funding.

中文翻译：

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德国的数学学习支持中心——概述

摘要

数学学习支持中心（MLSC）在英语国家（如英国、爱尔兰和澳大利亚）广泛建立和评估。在大多数这些国家中，存在多项关于 MLSC 的国家调查。它们概述了 MLSC 的数量及其在这些国家的特点。在德国，缺乏对 MLSC 的研究，并且尚未描述 MLSC 的景观。本文介绍了有关 MLSC 数量及其在大学中的特征的基本信息。基于通过电子邮件或电话分析大学主页和其他个人联系的三步法，我们收集了典型的 MLSC 特征（例如员工数量和资格、开放和支持时间、支持的学习计划）。我们从基于网络的学习计划登记册中分析了 190 所大学。我们总共在 51 所德国大学发现了​​ 61 个 MLSC。另外16个支持中心专门从事数学教学，这意味着他们专注于为职前教师学生提供教学和方法支持，并经常提供不同的教材。38 个中心位于大学 (62.3%)，23 个 MLSC 位于应用科学大学和同类大学 (37.7%)。MLSC的人员规模和开放时间不同，人员数量和服务时间也有很大差异。德国大学的 MLSCs 学生团体关注不同的特征，如学习计划或学期。我们将提供描述这些组的主要类别。我们试图回答有关德国 MLSC 特征的研究问题，并讨论与国际调查结果相比的结果。这些信息对于进一步的国际合作研究很有用，例如标准化的国际调查。从国家的角度来看，这些发现也支持 MLSC 之间的联网和合作。由于一些德国 MLSC 面临财政削减，这些结果可能有助于获得额外资金。