Economy students' learning and application of mathematics in an interdisciplinary setting at university

Mathematics is an important discipline as a subsidiary subject in a number of educational programmes at universities, e.g. engineering, science and economy. In this article, the authors present and discuss findings from a study about how students learn and apply mathematics at Aarhus University where the teaching of mathematics is integrated in the teaching of macroeconomics and statistics. Findings indicate that mathematics is highly valued by teachers, tutors and students. However, the study also reveals that the educational programme addresses the issue of just-in-time mathematics through coordination of subjects rather than by a genuine interdisciplinary approach. Furthermore, the organization of tutorials seems to have the unfortunate side effect that tutors are unable to teach the most difficult mathematics.