Mathematics makes you a genius

...or thats what they say.

The Green Cow

Recently, an article in a Flemish paper caught my attention. The head of the article read: Extra mathematics can make a dierence in chances of succeeding at university.1 Apart from journalistic failures 2 , your cow has some statistical reservations about this article. Fortunately the article points already at a few of the remarks, but to rigorous enough.

What says the article?

The article was written after some researchers from the university of Hasselt, Belgium, published the results of a study they did. The subject of this study was the inuence of studying mathematics in secondary school on the chances of success in university. Een uur wiskunde extra betekent volgens het onderzoek een groot verschil in de slaagkansen. (An additional hour of mathematics [per week, in secondary school, your cow ] makes a big dierence in the chances of success.) For economic students the chances of passing the rst year would be three times higher if they had four instead of three hours of mathematics per week in secondary school. The article sites the rector of the university as follows: Het valt vooral op dat voor die universitaire richtingen waar wiskunde een rol speelt het aantal uren wiskunde in het middelbaar heel belangrijk is. Het verschil tussen 3 en 4 uur wiskunde is essentieel. (Most remarkable is that for majors where mathematics plays a roll the number of hours of mathematics [per week, in secondary school, your cow ] is very important. The dierence between three and four hours of mathematics is essential.) The article further presents reactions and nuances on the described results. Which are less important to me.

What to do?
From now on we will put all children in mathematics classes for at least four hours per week during their time at secondary schools. Or even more, if we just go by the head
1 2

Article Why put the head as a quote if you do not clarify who made that statement?

of the article. By stung enough mathematics in their brains, they all should become successful at university and hopefully afterwards in their professional lives. When we make all children study enough mathematics, they all should become genius students. Suddenly almost all students would succeed at rst try at university without much problems. These improved results would doubtlessly lead to a huge reduction in education costs. The higher success rate could even lead to improved self esteem among students, which may then lead to a reduction in psychological problems such as depression. It seems God is a mathematician after all. 3 Let us all go worship him immediately.

Or is it all another bias?

Well, your cow thinks it sure is a bias. The Belgium education system gives the opportunity to choose among a broad range of main subjects in secondary school. A commonly observed phenomena is the so-called water fall system. A lot of parents want their children to do the most dicult subjects in secondary school. If the children do not succeed at these subjects, they fall down to a lower level. In case that is still to high, they go down again. Etcetera. Mathematics and sciences are generally perceived to be at the top of this cascade. (Together with, for historical reasons, Latin and Ancient Greek.) The most intelligent and motivated students will have less chance of going down the cascade and will have studied a lot of mathematics. Obviously intelligent and motivated students will also have a higher chances of success at university, compared to less intelligent and less motivated students. Maybe the researchers should have included the number of times a student changed his main subjects in secondary school in the study. Regarding the second statement: it seems even more obvious that students with a sound basic knowledge of mathematics after secondary school, will do better if they go on to study mathematics at university than students who already failed maths in secondary school. Your cow advices to all parents to choose main subjects for their children based on their talents and interests. Their changes of success will be probably the greatest if they do something they like and that is challenging yet not impossible to achieve.

Is God a Mathematician? 0743294068.

By Mario Livio, Publisher: Simon Schuster 2010, 320 Pages, ISBN: