Group work and giving students time to discuss their work helps to build their confidence in using maths in science lessons, a new study shows.
Researchers have found discussion is important because students use different ways to solve problems even if they have been in the same class, taught by the same teacher.
Previous analysis has shown students often find it difficult to use maths in science, even if they have been successful in mathematics courses.
This new study identifies four different ways students attempt to solve maths problems in science, even when in the same class.
Opportunity within the classroom to talk, discuss and construct answers collectively to quantitative problems is likely to be as valuable as with any other kind of science learning.
The study was carried out by Victoria Wong, Taro Fujita, Alison Hill and Stuart Ruffle from the University of Exeter.
Dr Wong said: "Our research shows the impact of the different modes of thinking students have. Some are happy to accept numerical answers, others want to understand what they mean and relate to science. Each can lead to successful outcomes and solutions.
"Identifying these patterns in student discourse is an important step to understand how students bring mathematics and science together in problem solving.
"Giving students the opportunity to work through problems in groups exposes them to different ways of thinking about the problem than they might have engaged with had they worked on their own. Learning science is about learning to use scientific words, and talk and discussion amongst students in the classroom is critical to supporting them in developing their use of this language, including mathematical language.
"Learning science is a process of learning the language of science, including words, diagrams, equations and symbols, and using them in a recognisably scientific way."
Some students who took part in the research showed science-dominant thinking - they used science knowledge to drive doing maths and tried to relate everything back to science. Others did the same with maths - they were interested in the numbers and less keen on relating that back to the science specific situation.
Other students were most keen on searching for the right equation, they wanted to pull out all different pieces of information and try and work out how to fit it together. This led to their working becoming less systematic and taking longer. Others had a mental schema, they had a clear idea about how to solve the problem, which made them faster and more confident.
Researchers interviewed students in groups and encouraging them to talk to each other as they worked through problems was a successful strategy to gain insight into students' thinking processes.
