MATHEMATICAL COMPETENCES OF STUDENTS IN SOLVING APPLIED PROBLEMS

Education is a multifunctional process which is created and conditioned by a number of components. Therefore the analysis of this process should be done in detail and in the mutual relations. An important indicator of the efficiency of the educational system is the professional adaptation of graduates to the labour market. At the universities in Slovakia the contemporary education is undergoing changes that are linked to the discussion on the quality of education and professional career of graduates in the labour market. There are a lot of economic branches where we can apply mathematical methods and educate outstanding graduates for the specialized economic positions. Consequently, at the economics oriented faculties the content of teaching mathematics includes those mathematical methods and procedures which can be used directly in the special topics with applied tasks. Solving applied tasks helps create links between study subjects, and furthermore, compile logical associations between theoretical knowledge and practical usage. The main objective of this paper is the analysis of the students' outcomes in mathematical subjects taught in the first year of study at the Faculty of Economics and Management, the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra. We use quantitative methods and descriptive statistics for the assessment of the results of solving applied tasks focused on economics. The data for analysis are summed up from the students' written tests containing the tasks related to the topics of mathematical analysis. Based on the results we will discuss the level of computational skills and abilities of students to apply the exact mathematics apparatus.