![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The shift from an élite to a mass system of higher education can be expected to have led to adjustments in the content of degree programmes. This study points to three main areas of change that have taken place in the content of single honours undergraduate mathematics degrees in England and Wales between 1989 and 1996. The range of mathematics covered has been broadened in favour of ‘new˚s applications of mathematics, a smaller amount of advanced content is now included, and assessment methods place more emphasis on interim examinations. These factors taken together suggest a shift in emphasis away from the rigour and abstraction characteristic of mathematics honours studies. It is argued that further change should increasingly take into account the need to develop students' interests and abilities in ways that allow a greater reconciliation of the tension between the needs of students following broader study and those following more specialised study.