THE RELATIONSHIP OF TEMPORAL DISTANCE TO MATHEMATICS TRAINING PERIODS AND PERFORMANCE FOR NON-TRADITIONAL POST-SECONDARY STUDENTS

The Problem. Increasing numbers of older non-traditional students are enrolling in post-secondary institutions. How their experiences relate to learning subject matter and the disadvantages or advantages of a lengthy break in their academic careers are concerns.;Method. The sample was a group of 59 Veterans Upward Bound students who subsequently enrolled at Humboldt State University and completed at least one college mathematics course. The nine variables were the number of high school mathematics courses, overall high school grade point average, high school mathematics GPA, temporal distance, assignment to the VUB mathematics/algebra class, change in score on the McGraw-Hill mathematics pre- and post-tests; score on the ACT mathematics section, HSU Mathematics Placement Test Code, and the first college course grade. The temporal distance factor ran from three to 369 months.;Results. The factors which bore a significant relationship to the variables of ACT mathematics section, MPT code and course grade were temporal distance, the number of years of high school mathematics, the high school GPA, and the assignment of the student to the mathematics or algebra VUB class.;The question of research was answered affirmatively: the time factor relates not only as an independent variable, but also enters in the sequencing of events which may not indicate causality but certainly priority. The only other factor which appeared as signficant was the number of years of high school mathematics in terms of assignment to the VUB mathematics or algebra classes. Likewise the number of years of high school math was related to performance on the Mathematics Placement Test and the ACT mathematics section.;This study posed the question: For non-traditional students who have participated in an academic developmental/remedial program is there a relationship between college performance in mathematics and the length of time since a student's last mathematics training period before college.;The larger issue may be seen as how long does it take to forget mathematics. According to the study the answer is that it apparently takes longer than the 8.5 year mean delay in mathematics training for the subjects to overcome the advantage of the high school experience. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).