LEVELLING UP MATH LITERACY THROUGH E-CONTENTS – AN EXAMPLE OF PORTUGUESE STUDENTS FROM HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM MANAGEMENT BACHELOR DEGREES

Despite the global and general Management Area, common to all the bachelor degrees in the School
\nof Hospitality and Tourism (ESHT) from the Polytechnic of Porto (P.PORTO), the pre-university areas
\nadmitted for entering these degrees are the most varied, going from Sciences and Technologies to
\nArts and Humanities.
\nThe students' abilities are very heterogeneous and this heterogeneity proves to be very awkward and
\ncomplex when dealing with specific themes related to Mathematics and to the deductive-logic
\nreasoning that this science involves and develops.
\nIn this article, we begin with a brief description of the process for entering into the Higher Education
\nPortuguese System, in particular in ESHT. We describe the different resources developed and
\navailable in the institutional Moodle platform, with a reference to the general and specific outcomes
\nand competences expected from Quantitative Methods (QM) course. Then, we analyse the impact of
\nusing several e-contents and resources, specifically developed for QM course, in the first semester of
\nthe first year (the usual General Mathematics course in any Management Degrees) and try to
\ndifferentiate the “impact perception” from the background students study field, based on students’
\ndirect assessment and their real learning results.
\nTo conclude, the results of the resources evaluation as learning support tools, made by students, are
\npresented and we cross these with the students’ success in this course. These findings suggest that
\nthe methodology used in this research could be a promising way of enhancing students’ learning
\nperformance.