Incentivising the study of advanced mathematics: A comparative analysis of Ireland and Queensland

Niamh O'Meara
University of Limerick, Ireland
Michael Jennings
The University of Queensland, Australia
Mark Prendergast
University College Cork, Ireland
Páraic Treacy
Mary Immaculate College, Ireland

There are substantial and ongoing concerns in the international secondary and tertiary education sectors about the number of students choosing advanced or higher-level mathematics at upper secondary level. Declining enrolments in the last two years of secondary school in higher-level mathematics is seen as a major concern for the future of STEM education. Due to these concerns incentives have been introduced internationally to arrest this decline. In Ireland, the bonus points initiative came into effect in 2012, whereby students were awarded 25 additional points if they obtain a score of 40% or more in higher-level mathematics in a terminal nation-wide examination. These additional 25 points are then added to their total points score from all subjects and this score dictates whether they gain entry to the tertiary course of their choice. However, research conducted into the effectiveness of this policy has identified numerous issues including students not suitable for higher-level mathematics pursuing it and as a result higher-level teachers are facing a much wider range of abilities in their mathematics lessons. This led the authors to look internationally to see if lessons could be taken from other jurisdictions that had incentivised the study of higher-level mathematics. In Queensland, Australia, higher-level mathematics is also incentivised through the use of bonus points. In this case, a student who passes higher-level mathematics in Year 12 will receive two bonus points towards their university entrance score. While these policies appear to be very similar in nature, the primary difference across the two jurisdictions is the weighting of the bonus points. In this paper we will look at the impact that these incentives have on students' decisions to pursue higher-level mathematics in both jurisdictions, and determine if each jurisdiction can learn lessons from the variations in the way bonus points policies are implemented.
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Authors: Dr Niamh O'Meara is an Associate Professor in Mathematics Education in the School of Education at the University of Limerick, Ireland. She is also the Deputy Director of Epi-STEM, the National Centre for STEM education. She is a qualified mathematics teacher and her research interests include mathematics teacher knowledge, curricular issues in mathematics education, numeracy education and improving attitudes and performance in mathematics. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6959-2783 Email: niamh.omeara@ul.ie Dr Michael Jennings is a Lecturer in Mathematics at The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. His research interests include students' transition from high school to university mathematics, as well as the teaching and learning of first-year university mathematics. Michael is a former mathematics and Japanese secondary school teacher. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6219-0776 Email: msj@uq.edu.au Dr Mark Prendergast is a Senior Lecturer in Education in the School of Education at University College Cork, Ireland. He is a qualified secondary level mathematics teacher. At tertiary level, his teaching and research interests include mathematics education, teacher education, and adult numeracy. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1766-7421 Email: mark.prendergast@ucc.ie Dr Páraic Treacy is a Lecturer in Mathematics in the school of Education at Mary Immaculate College (Thurles), Ireland. His qualifications include a PhD in Mathematics Education, BSc in Physical Education and Mathematics, and a Senior Fellowship of the HEA (UK). His research interests include integrated STEM education, mathematics education and mathematics assessment methods. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6447-1798 Email: paraic.treacy@mic.ul.ie Please cite as: O'Meara, N., Jennings, M., Prendergast, M. & Treacy, P. (2025). Incentivising the study of advanced mathematics: A comparative analysis of Ireland and Queensland. Issues in Educational Research, 35(3), 1054-1077. http://www.iier.org.au/iier35/omeara.pdf