The aim of this study was to develop and, to some extent, assess new materials and methods of teaching elementary mathematics to first year economics undergraduates at Cambridge. At the beginning of term, 128 first year students completed a pre‐test in basic mathematical concepts and at the end of term, 112 of this total completed a similar post‐test. Of these, 48 students, most of whom had O level mathematical backgrounds, followed the elementary mathematics course. Methods used with different groups of these students included self‐instructional learning programmes written especially for the course, a lecture course together with classes involving the use of a desk computer and a straight lecture course. Although the resulting statistics showed no clear differences in effectiveness between teaching methods used, this may be attributed to problems of control and design of experiment. The results together with student attitudes, however, provide valuable indications of how students’ needs in this area may be more adequately met.