Education Commons^™

Quantitative Reasoning: What’S Math Got To Do With It?, Pamela Burdman

Numeracy

This keynote address explores the history and role of college math requirements with a focus on ensuring math courses serve to expand students’ horizons, rather than serve as gatekeepers. It discusses the advent of general education math courses, which brought more students into math departments, which ultimately contributed to broadening the scope of the courses to align with more students’ interests and majors, since their purpose was to advance quantitative reasoning, not mathematics skill per se. It also examines several practices to address calculus’ gatekeeping role: revising placement practices and prerequisites, redesigning courses, and updating instruction and assessment practices. Lastly, …

Numeracy Tasks: Inspiring Transfer Between Concrete And Abstract Thinking Spaces, Taras Gula, Miroslav Lovric

Numeracy

In our paper we build a case for conceptualizing numeracy tasks as distinct from mathematical tasks (or at least as a special type of mathematical task), and for abstraction and interpretation as a set of key activities necessary for designating a numeracy task as being high-quality. We start with an attempt to tame the fuzziness of numeracy and its family members (including quantitative reasoning, quantitative literacy, mathematical literacy, and the word problem cousins) by outlining six areas of consensus gleaned from literature. These provide the foundation for a core mandate of numeracy. We then build our case for the distinctness …

Infusing Quantitative Reasoning Skills Into A Differential Equation Class In An Urban Public Community College, Tanvir Prince

Numeracy

This research centers on implementing Quantitative Reasoning (QR) within a differential equations course at an urban public community college. As a participant in the Numeracy Infusion for College Educators (NICE) faculty development program, I sought to integrate QR skills into my curriculum. Students in the course were introduced to QR goals using real-world data sets, particularly those related to population growth, which aim to enhance their understanding, sharpen their problem-solving abilities, and cultivate a positive perspective on the real-world relevance of mathematics. Preliminary findings indicate varied levels of QR skill development among students. These results underscore the potential benefits of …

Instructional Decision Making In A Gateway Quantitative Reasoning Course, Deependra Budhathoki, Gregory D. Foley, Stephen Shadik

Numeracy

Many educators and professional organizations recommend Quantitative Reasoning as the best entry-level postsecondary mathematics course for non-STEM majors. However, novice and veteran instructors who have no prior experience in teaching a QR course often express their ignorance of the content to choose for this course, the instruction to offer students, and the assessments to measure student learning. We conducted a case study to investigate the initial implementation of an entry-level university quantitative reasoning course during fall semester, 2018. The participants were the course instructor and students. We examined the instructor’s motives and actions and the students’ responses to the course. …

Covid Learning Loss: A Call To Action, Nathan D. Grawe

Numeracy

The COVID-19 pandemic and policy responses designed to mitigate transmission have caused deep and persistent mathematics learning loss among K–12 students. While initial data might have been read optimistically as a blip that would reverse once schools returned to normal, 2023 data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that losses persist. While the NAEP does not directly measure quantitative reasoning (QR), the data present a disturbing picture for QR instruction and call for new lines of research that inform QR pedagogical response.

Bite-Sized Quantitative Reasoning Essays: A Review Of Numbers Don’T Lie: 71 Stories To Help Us Understand The Modern World (2020), By Vaclav Smil, Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

In Numbers Don’t Lie: 71 Stories to Help Us Understand the Modern World (2020), Vaclav Smil draws on his interdisciplinary background in science, public policy, and history to provide readers with 71 short essays that help us better understand aspects of the world–including its people, environment, energy consumption, and present crises (among other things). In most of his essays, Smil utilizes both data and reasoning with data to shed light on diverse topics, with issues ranging from happiness rankings and vaccine payoffs to chicken production and diesel engines. Though the book arguably has some flaws, its easy-to-digest essays–many of which …

Covid-19: A Developing Crisis For Quantitative Reasoning, Nathan D. Grawe

Numeracy

Assessment data show substantial learning losses resulting from pandemic-era teaching and learning. While all learning domains have been affected, mathematics performance shows particularly large losses among elementary and secondary school students. Advocates for quantitative reasoning in high schools and colleges should anticipate weaker levels of basic numeracy among entering cohorts for a decade to come. As a consequence, the urgency to reform curricula and student support has never been greater.

An Astronomer’S Journey Into Quantitative Reasoning, Jeffrey Bennett

Numeracy

The University of Colorado Boulder campus introduced what may have been the world’s first quantitative reasoning (QR) requirement in 1984 and started offering a QR course in 1988. Although I am an astronomer by training, I had the privilege of creating and teaching that course, which led to my co-authorship of the first textbook directed specifically at QR courses. In this “Roots and Seeds” piece, I will discuss how this course and textbook came to be, how I as an astronomer ended up involved in it, and how this work has connected with other aspects of my career.

A Comparison Of Students’ Quantitative Reasoning Skills In Stem And Non-Stem Math Pathways, Emily Elrod, Joo Young Park

Numeracy

Quantitative Reasoning (QR) is essential for today’s students, yet most higher education institutions have not effectively addressed this issue. This study investigates students’ quantitative reasoning in STEM and Non-STEM math pathways using a non-proprietary, NSF grant-funded instrument, the Quantitative Literacy & Reasoning Assessment (QLRA). Participants were students enrolled in at least one college-level math pathway course at a large public institution in the southeastern US. The results showed a significant difference between STEM and Non-STEM students’ QLRA scores, with STEM students (n = 244, M = 27%, SD = 16.21%) scoring, on average, about 6% higher than Non-STEM students …

The Sons Report (1989-1994, Mathematical Association Of America): The Way It Was, Linda R. Sons

Numeracy

Recollections and commentary by Linda R. Sons on a 1994 national report entitled Quantitative Reasoning for College Graduates: A Complement to the Standards. Professor Sons chaired the committee which wrote the report and championed its use.

This paper traces the development of the 1994 MAA report Quantitative Reasoning for College Graduates: A Complement to the Standards--a report which is still surprisingly relevant. The paper highlights some major parts of the report, describing the context in which its conclusions were made. Additionally, it challenges and encourages those continuing the quest for QL in the nation by noting progress made …

Parts Of The Whole: Teaching Quantitative Reasoning In The Predator-Prey Model, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

The classical predator-prey equations are in nearly every differential equations text and mathematical biology text. Usually they are presented fait accompli, leaving the student to analyze them or play with a computer program. Here we show that the process of fully understanding where these equations come from and how they are derived provides numerous opportunities to teach or reinforce quantitative reasoning skills necessary to future scientists. This example is used to invoke logic, systems thinking, causal reasoning, understanding functions of one or more variables, quantities versus rates of change, proportional reasoning, unit analysis, and comparison to data.

Does Completion Of Quantitative Courses Predict Better Quantitative Reasoning-In-Writing Proficiency?, Nathan D. Grawe

Numeracy

Using data from Carleton College, this study explores the connection between students’ completion of a range of quantitative courses and the quality of their quantitative reasoning in writing (QRW) as exhibited in courses throughout the undergraduate curriculum during the first two years of college. Because the assessment takes place in the context of a campus-wide initiative which has improved QRW on the whole, the study identifies course-taking patterns which predict stronger than average improvement. Results suggest QRW is not exceptionally improved by taking courses in statistics, principles of economics, or in the social sciences more broadly. QRW performance is, on …