ABSTRACT
Mathematics is often called the “critical filter” (Sells, 1973). Participation in mathematics courses has been an educational concern for several decades in the United States. In the 1970s, Sells (1973) reported that 9 out of 10 first-year female students entering the University of California at Berkeley had such inadequate mathematics preparation that they would eventually be ineligible for 70% of the career choices available to them. In the 1980s, concerns were expressed in the national report, A Nation at Risk, about the large number of students who dropped out of mathematics courses, especially elective courses (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). In the 1990s, concerns about mathematics preparation continued (Betz, 1992). For example, student underrepresentation in advanced mathematics courses such as trigonometry, analytic geometry, and calculus has been particularly worrisome (National Center for Education Statistics, 1993).
