Promoting student engagement with mathematics support

This article reports the findings of qualitative research undertaken to seek to identify the key reasons why some students are not engaging with mathematics support provided by Loughborough University. The research involved a number of focus groups and ‘on the spot’ interviews with ‘non-users’ from across the campus. Barriers identi¢ed include a lack of awareness of the location of support and a fear of embarrassment. Further interviews were conducted with regular users of the support in an attempt to understand how some of these barriers to usage might be overcome. The article will discuss actions that may be taken to improve student engagement with mathematics support and the issue of how student motivation may affect such action.