A Tale of Two Continents: Factors Influencing Students to Major in Mathematics

Abstract

Students consider the selection of their college major as one of the critical decisions in their life. Literature suggests that influencing factors can differ based on the academic discipline, student status (freshmen, declared, etc.), and geography. We select two countries, the United States and Sri Lanka, with contrasting education systems and study the factors which may have influenced students to become mathematics majors. We consider the effect of ten influencing factors, which form three clusters, namely, “Career-Related”, “Math-Related”, and “Other”. The study first reveals that the factors and clusters significantly affect student decisions in the two countries. One of the critical conclusions of the study is how the “MathRelated” cluster influences students’ decisions significantly more than the other two clusters. We also look at the difference in the impact of specific influencing factors on the two populations and find that factors related to the nature of mathematics influence US students more than Sri Lankan students. The study’s conclusions should benefit teachers and recruiters when guiding future math majors.