The influence of blended practice-oriented cases on learning motivation and cognitive activity in studying the disciplines «Linear algebra and analytic geometry» and «Mathematical analysis»

Abstract

A blended practice-oriented case – an assignment with professional content whose completion is partly transferred into an e-learning course – is widely discussed as a way of sustaining first-year students' learning motivation and cognitive activity, yet nobody has checked whether university course documentation actually provides for it. This study asks whether the syllabi of Linear Algebra and Analytic Geometry and of Mathematical Analysis fix the content elements and assessment devices through which such an influence could operate at all. The corpus comprises 15 syllabi and assessment-tool appendices openly published on the official websites of ten Russian higher education institutions, covering 8 degree programmes and approved between 2018 and 2025. Each document served as the coding unit, and nine binary features were applied to it: the applied or professional framing of tasks, the explicit naming of a case assignment, its inclusion among assessment tools, three levels of electronically mediated delivery, the presence of a cumulative grading scheme, credit for classroom activity, and motivational wording among the planned learning outcomes. Applied or professional framing appears in ten documents, an explicit case is named once, and no syllabus lists a case among its assessment tools. Electronic resources are mentioned in thirteen syllabi, an e-learning course is named as a means of organising study in seven, and a blended delivery format in one. Assessment criteria reward student activity in two documents, and motivational outcomes are stated in four. No document combines a case assignment with electronically mediated organisation of work. Practice orientation is anchored in aims and content, whereas assessment retains its computational and test-based structure, so the declared influence on motivation and cognitive activity is neither supported by a designed assignment nor recorded by any adopted indicator. The gap between the goal-setting and assessment sections points to a specific direction for aligning them.