What Are Effective Research Topics for a Mathematics Major?

[Pascal's Pal]

My college requires all students to take an English course in their junior or senior year that that forces the students to do the kind of reading and writing that is used in their majors. So my major is mathematics, and I'm in the science section of this class. Anyway, we have a major research assignment in the class that requires us to utilize recently published papers and whatnot in our field--but I kind of have no idea where to begin.

For those of you who have studied mathematics, are you aware of any topics that would be ideal for this sort of project?

Here's the teacher's guidelines:

You may develop a project on any scientific topic in your field that interests you; however, you need to select a topic for which you can generate an interesting research question and that you can develop into a feasible research design. Topics in the areas of ethics, procedure, administration, policy, legislation, and other non-scientific issues related to science are not appropriate for this assignment. Learning goals for this assignment, as they relate to university learning goals for the course, are listed at the end of this assignment sheet.

The final version of this project will be a full paper of 10-15 pages (not counting the bibliography pages), double-spaced in 12 point Times New Roman. Your bibliography must include at least 12 scholarly sources, and 9 of these must be recently published peer-reviewed articles).

I don't really feel that I have the knowledge to wade through current mathematical papers (or even old ones) and the requirement is that it must have to do with my field. Any ideas you math majors could share?

 

[lippyka]

Some potential topics you could consider researching include: 1. The influence of machine learning algorithms on mathematics education 2. Exploring the impact of graphing calculators on student learning in mathematics 3. Investigating the use of computer-aided problem solving in mathematics 4. The role of technology in teaching and learning calculus 5. Exploring the influence of online mathematics courses on student learning 6. Investigating the use of games in teaching mathematics 7. Analyzing the effectiveness of different methods for teaching mathematics 8. Examining the impact of video lectures on student performance in mathematics 9. Investigating the effect of different types of textbooks on student learning in mathematics 10. Examining the role of visual aids in teaching mathematics 11. Investigating the impact of technology on student engagement in mathematics classes 12. Analyzing the effectiveness of different types of mathematics curricula