Online early monitoring of students' level of mathematical ability in engineering mathematics subjects

Proper mastery of engineering mathematics is one of the key success factors for students in the field of engineering. delays in identifying students who are weak in mathematics can result in their having difficulties in learning subsequent mathematics courses. therefore,a method of monitoring students' ability in the faculty of engineering and built environment,universiti kebangsaan malaysia (ukm) in the subject of mathematics was developed in the form of an online system,namely,tcexam. tcexam contains a maths readiness test for the subjects of vector calculus and linear algebra. a total of 60 questions in the form of multi-objective questions are prepared based on important topics needed to be mastered by students. also included in the tcexam are survey questions on factors among students in selecting a university. the tcexam is implemented for students during the first week of the semester. this system will provide maths readiness test results directly to the lecturers and the data will then be analysed using the rasch measurement model to obtain a reliability value as well as test quality and students' level of ability. the high value of item reliability of 0.98 explains that the level of reliability of the readiness test questions is very high. results from the rasch analysis also reflect that students' level of mathematical ability is poor,indicating that the maths readiness test is needed at the early stage of their enrolment into university to identify weak students much earlier so that specific monitoring measures can be made to help these students. © universiti putra malaysia press.