The infamously hard jump from high school to university maths, “The Mathematics Problem”, was coined 30 years ago to put a name to the challenge felt by students the world over.

Now, a Swinburne mathematics education expert is calling for a rethink of the transition between high school and university maths to help protect our STEM workforce and keep students studying maths - especially as mathematically demanding disciplines look set to shape future economies.

The Mathematics Problem highlights the stark differences in high school and university assessments, expectations, theoretical thinking, students' wellbeing, access to support and institutional culture.

Lead author of the new paper, Swinburne Mathematics Education Associate Professor Paul Hernandez Martinez, argues that despite more than three decades of research, the transition from school to university mathematics remains a persistent challenge.

He says that can have implications well beyond degrees, to participation and success across STEM and other mathematically demanding fields.

“Successful transitions into university mathematics affect pathways into engineering, science, data science, AI, economics and other areas that are central to Australia’s future STEM workforce,” he says.

“Three decades later, this gap has become a more significant issue as more students are choosing to study maths.

“As mathematically demanding disciplines have become increasingly important to modern economies, we need to stop the next generation being deterred from further maths study.”

Associate Professor Hernandez-Martinez’s points out that recent research challenges the common misconception that difficulties are simply produced by weaknesses in students, and he argues that the transition to university mathematics should instead be understood as a shared challenge for schools and universities.

“Many students who achieved excellent school results discover that the habits that previously made them successful are no longer enough,” he says.

“At school, success often comes through recognising familiar problem types and applying well-practised methods. At university, students are expected to work more independently, justify their reasoning, interpret formal definitions, connect ideas across topics and tackle unfamiliar problems in different contexts with much less guidance.

“This helps explain why telling students to ‘practise more’ is often insufficient. Practice is valuable, but if it focuses only on reproducing procedures, it may not prepare students for the kinds of reasoning and judgement increasingly expected at university.”

The new visionary paper was published in Teaching Mathematics and its Applications’, and it is the first of a new type of articles intended to identify unresolved problems and set an agenda for the future of the field.

Associate Professor Hernandez-Martinez says designing better transitions and setting expectations in the difference between high school and university maths is crucial in saving our future workforce.

“Successful transitions are created through shared responsibility,” he says.

“Rather than viewing transition as a gap that students must somehow cross alone, we might think of it as a handover between two parts of an education system.

“A successful handover depends on both sides understanding one another's expectations while recognising that school and university mathematics necessarily serve different purposes.”