The vast majority of students enter South African universities from socio-economically disadvantaged communities, uniquely rich in cultural and multi-lingual diversity. Unfortunately, the poor schooling often associated with the former places these students at a disadvantage leading to inadequate preparation for tertiary education.
The challenge of leveling the playing field for these students, as they enter university is an ongoing challenge in South Africa. Senior lecturer, Joyce Sewry, at Rhodes University’s Chemistry Department, has been at the forefront of trying to meet this challenge for many years. Working with the LearnSci team, Joyce initiated the scientific numeracy project in her first-year class of 2024. The aim of the research project was to explore the value of a suitably customised (by Joyce) scientific numeracy Smart Worksheet (SNSW) to both identify mathematical proficiency gaps in her first-year chemistry class, and as a learning support tool to potentially address these gaps. She was able to convince 210 students in her first-year introductory chemistry class to agree to participate in this project.
The project quickly identified gaps in the students' mathematical proficiency that could be addressed, in part, by repeated attempts at the worksheet. The overwhelming positive feedback to the Smart Worksheet from the students in Joyce’s class underlined the value of the SNSW as a learning support tool in a highly diverse university environment.
The novelty of this work is firstly, that it is the first Smart Worksheet-based chemistry education research project to be carried out in Africa. Secondly, the research project provided the valuable groundwork for a more extensive comparative research project in 2025 involving over 700 students spread across two South African universities; Rhodes University and the University of the Western Cape. Thirdly, the results from this research project were published in 2025 in the South African Journal (entitled “Smart Worksheets to Probe and Support Scientific Numeracy Proficiency of First-Year Chemistry Students”) in order to bring the success of the project to the attention of chemistry academics in South Africa, and possibly other countries with diverse student populations mathematically unprepared for tertiary education in chemistry.
To note: Joyce Sewry designed and managed the study. Technical support, including worksheet modification and analytics reporting, was provided by LearnSci. Employees of LearnSci are included as contributors to the implementation and data analysis phases of the project.