Education Commons^™

Course Design And Academic Outcomes In Quantitative Literacy After Eliminating Required Remediation, Jennifer E. Clinkenbeard

Numeracy

In Fall 2018, remedial mathematics courses were eliminated from the 23-campus California State University system under Executive Order 1110. Incoming first-year students were placed into college credit-bearing mathematics courses with options for corequisite support. This study examines the academic outcomes for students at California State University Monterey Bay in a college credit level quantitative literacy (QL) mathematics course with optional corequisite support during the 2018-2019 academic year. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that required remediation is not necessary for success in college-level QL. The corequisite support model also has potential to support more equitable outcomes for all …

Probing For Bias: Comparing Populations Using Item Response Curves, Paul J. Walter, Edward Nuhfer, Crisel Suarez

Numeracy

We introduce an approach for making a quantitative comparison of the item response curves (IRCs) of any two populations on a multiple-choice test instrument. In this study, we employ simulated and actual data. We apply our approach to a dataset of 12,187 participants on the 25-item Science Literacy Concept Inventory (SLCI), which includes ample demographic data of the participants. Prior comparisons of the IRCs of different populations addressed only two populations and were made by visual inspection. Our approach allows for quickly comparing the IRCs for many pairs of populations to identify those items where substantial differences exist. For each …

Parts Of The Whole: The Last Column: Freire's Pedagogy Of Liberation, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

The educational theory of Paolo Freire is briefly summarized for instructors of quantitative reasoning, with a focus on what it means to give students “agency.” Some examples are given of how to implement his basic ideas.

Review Of Numeracy As Social Practice: Global And Local Perspectives, Edited By Keiko Yasukawa, Alan Rogers, Kara Jackson And Brian Street., Helen M. Oughton

Numeracy

Yasukawa, K., Rogers, A., Jackson, K. and Street, B. (Eds) (2018) Numeracy as Social Practice: Global and Local Perspectives, Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-28445-6.

This edited collection of chapters, part of Routledge’s Rethinking Development series, examines the uses of numeracy in a wide variety of contexts in countries around the world, and the educational approaches which reflect – or in many cases, fail to reflect – those real-life numeracy activities. Educators and researchers with a commitment to social justice and global development will find this book a valuable resource for building a broader vision of what numeracy means.

Factors In The Probability Of Covid-19 Transmission In University Classrooms, Charles Connor

Numeracy

University students and faculty members need an effective strategy to evaluate and reduce the probability that an individual will become infected with COVID-19 as a result of classroom interactions. Models are developed here that consider the probability an individual will become infected as a function of: prevalence of the disease in the university community, number of students in class, number of class meetings, and transmission rate in the classroom given the presence of an infected individual. Absolute probabilities that an individual will become infected in a classroom environment cannot be calculated because some of these factors have unknown values. Nevertheless, …

Measuring Numeracy: Validity And The Programme For The International Assessment Of Adult Competencies (Piaac), Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

A tension raised in recent scholarship is that between numeracy as a social practice and numeracy as a functional skill set. Such frameworks for conceptualizing numeracy pose a challenge to assessment because what individuals do with numeracy is not the same as what individuals can do (or express) in an assessment setting. This study builds on work related to numeracy assessment through a validity examination of a portion of a well-known assessment: the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). In following a path set out by standards for assessment, I ask: What does the PIAAC numeracy …

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 …

Development And Assessment Of A Continuing Education Unit In Quantitative Literacy For High School Stem Teachers, Craig P. Mcclure

Numeracy

Influencing the teaching of quantitative literacy at all levels of education can be difficult due to the many demands placed on educators. In a continuing education course, public high school science teachers participated in a pilot study of a program on quantitative literacy, involving defining quantitative literacy, how it is beneficial to students, examples of quantitative literacy education, and how it may be supported in the science classroom. Surveys administered before and after the unit indicate an improvement in the teachers’ understanding of quantitative literacy, and a follow-up survey indicates that the unit impacted classroom practice. Results support the conclusion …

Parts Of The Whole: The Having Of Wonderful Ideas: Eleanor Duckworth Introduces Us To Piaget, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

The small book of essays by Eleanor Duckworth has been a staple of teacher education for decades, serving as a bridge between Piaget’s observations of infants and the needs of the classroom. As her examples tend to be of young children, we consider more general ideas in the context of older grades and higher education. Several of her insights are discussed with an eye to application in the field of quantitative education, highlighting the need to integrate issues of pedagogy with those of content.

Planting Seeds Of Numeracy: Supporting Quantitative Literacy In Young Children, Jennifer Ward, Victoria J. Damjanovic

Numeracy

This paper aims to present how quantitative literacy was made a focus in a preschool classroom of three- and four-year-old children. With a focus on examining two areas of quantitative literacy, number knowledge and counting (Jordan, Kaplan, and Locuniak 2007) we seek to explore how educators, within an early childhood setting, used a project approach (Katz, Chard, and Kogan, 2014) and inquiry-based practices to build and extend upon the emerging competencies of the children. Utilizing narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), we draw from planning meeting notes, lesson plans, and lesson artifacts to construct a story that chronicles the journey …

Effects Of Quantitative Literacy On Healthcare Decision-Making: An Aural Context, Robert G. Root, Sonia Bhala

Numeracy

We propose a relationship between sensory modality, numerical formatting, and performance on a survey simulating healthcare decision-making. We examine the current literature on aural health literacy, and specifically aural literacy coupled with health numeracy. We then create a survey instrument called the Bhala test for this purpose and demonstrate that it is moderately internally consistent and provides results that correlate with the NUMi assessment, a widely accepted measure of health numeracy. The quantitative information provided in the Bhala test has two treatments, percentage and natural frequency formats, in an effort to determine which format is easier for subjects to use …