While it is widely known that mathematics is essential for a number of disciplines

such as science and technology, it is also known that mathematics is essential and

fundamental for engineering and this research focuses on Mechanical, Electrical and

Civil Engineering course. It is consistently seen that students entering higher education

have poor mathematics skills which cause difficulties for them in a number of

engineering areas.

This study or research, it is important to investigate the mathematical skills of all

first-year students in Electrical, Civil and Mechanical Engineering in Cebu Technological

University in Bitoon, Dumanjug, Cebu Philippines.

In this research, it is important to:

1. Investigate first-year engineering students beliefs about towards mathematics.

2. Compare their experiences at the start of their studies after having studied

mathematics as part of their engineering degree in first year.

3. Test students core mathematical skills.

4. Attempt to highlight students strengths and weaknesses in these core areas.

The research attempted to answer these questions using a mathematics tests were

run, focusing on the core mathematical skills necessary for engineering students. Both the

test and survey were run at second semester of school year 2019.

The will reflected high levels of confidence in relation to mathematics and high

goals in relation to mathematical achievement. The test results showed a number of

strengths and weaknesses in understanding or dealing with basic mathematical problems

and concepts.

It has been shown to be common across all disciplines in which mathematics is

studied that mathematics is disliked. Mathematics has long been known to be problematic

for university engineering students and their teachers. The value of mathematics in

engineering remains a central problem, and argue that mathematics should be a

fundamental concern in the design and practice of first year engineering.

Mathematics is increasingly the focus of educational studies nationally and

internationally. This is due to the growing need of mathematical skills in today’s

technological and industrial world along with the challenges and difficulties associated

with its teaching and learning. An important element in the economic of industrialized

country is the appropriate education of their engineers considering the mastering of

mathematics to be an essential skill for engineers and mathematics is the language of

communication for scientists and engineers.

For engineering students, the mathematics education is an important component

of their studies. For that reason, undergraduate engineering courses include a large

amount of knowledge in mathematics, in order to provide students with the required level

of mathematical knowledge to be use in different engineering they study.

For first year Engineering Student, mathematical ability is necessary. The first

year engineering student must have the ability of conceptual understanding, procedural

knowledge and problem solving. First, conceptual understanding reflect a student’s

competency to understand the situation concerning the cautious application of an idea of

definition, representation and relation. Recognizing, labeling, and generating examples of

concepts; creating and using models, illustration, manipulative and mixed representation

of concepts; distinguishing and applying its principles; lastly, understanding and applying

the facts and definition, these are just some of ideas if the student have conceptual

understanding. Procedural knowledge is a mathematical ability of a student that uses a set

of steps that are to be followed in order to solve a mathematical problem. Choosing and

applying the exact process correctly; to prove, show, find out or justify the correctness of

a procedure using a factual models or symbolic methods; drawing out or modifying the

procedure to deal with factors inherent in problem setting, these are the ways that the

student demonstrate a procedural knowledge. Lastly, problem solving situation want the

students to concatenate their mathematical information, understanding, or skill that they

get from the concepts, process, logic and communication skills to answer their problem.

In an honest and direct way, the student must have a feeling or belief and the ability to

make use of numbers and mathematical approaches in every angle of their life.

This paper is to look at or examine the performance of every first year

engineering student. In an attempt to quantify those factors we will perform a

questionnaire survey for first year engineering student. The conclusion here will be

exclusively based on the questionnaire survey result. The judgement will guide us to

suggestion of how to conquer their weaknesses. The ideals of these papers are:

i. To determine index of difficulty and discreteness.

 ii. To identify the lack of knowledge of the first year engineering student.

iii. To suggest or imply an area of improvement for faster and suitable learning

for the first year engineering student.