Recovering autonomous work after the pandemic: analysis in Calculus for incoming Students in Technical Education degrees

The use of active methodologies in the first years of university technical education is a difficult task to approach from two different points of view: from the student’s point of view, since it implies a greater participation in the teaching-learning process, to which he/she is not used to; and from the teacher’s point of view, because of the difficulty involved in the design of activities, particularly in basic subjects of the first year. This article shows an experience of autonomous work using Problem Based Learning applied to the study of real functions of a real variable, as part of the subject Calculus of several Engineering degrees. The result is positive with an improvement in autonomous work when active methodologies are used. From the analysis performed, and using a dataset spanning three academic years and including a diverse sample of 527 students, our study provides a solid basis for researchers, designers and especially mathematics educators to improve student performance by introducing active methodologies. The increased generalizability and implications for educational practice place our study as a valuable contribution to the field, making the way easier for using Problem Based Learning in early grades.