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Pisa 2018: Reporting Australia’S Results. Volume I Student Performance, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international comparative study of student performance directed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). PISA measures the cumulative outcomes of education by assessing how well 15-year-olds, who are nearing the end of their compulsory schooling in most participating educational systems, are prepared to use the knowledge and skills in particular areas to meet real-life opportunities and challenges. The term literacy is attached to the assessment domains of reading, mathematics and science to reflect the focus on these broader skills and as a concept it is used in a much …

Pisa 2018 In Brief I. Student Performance, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This document provides a summary of student performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 assessment and tells us about their capacities to apply knowledge and skills in the domains of reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy. In 2018, 79 countries and economies including Australia participated in PISA. The focus of this report is Australia’s performance results in an international context. It covers Australia’s performance over time, results for the Australian states and territories, school sectors, female and male students, the geographic location of schools, socioeconomic background, Indigenous background, immigrant background and language spoken at home.

Pisa 2018: Reporting Australia’S Results. Volume I Student Performance: Data Tables [Excel] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This zipped excel file is the data behind the figures and tables in the report: PISA 2018: Reporting Australia’s Results. Volume I Student Performance. They cover Australian student performance in reading literacy, reading literacy subscales, mathematical literacy and reading literacy.

Scottish National Assessments Inform Next Steps For Learning

International Developments

ACER works with the Scottish Government, in partnership with Twig and SCHOLAR, to develop and deliver assessments of literacy and numeracy learning progress. Since 2017, more than a million assessments have been completed by children and young people throughout Scotland.

Not Just For The Kids: Adult Skills In The 21st Century, Juliette Mendelovits, Dave Tout

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

The Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is an international survey of adult skills that covers reading literacy, numeracy and problem-solving of 16-to-65-year-old adults. This paper focuses on the development and evolution of the reading and numeracy aspects of PIAAC and presents an overview of Australian performance in PIAAC, the social and economic outcomes associated with literacy and numeracy proficiency and the literacy and numeracy standards for graduating teachers.

Predicting Third-Grade Mathematics Achievement: A Longitudinal Investigation Of The Role Of Early Numeracy Skills, Allyson J. Kiss, Gena Nelson, Theodore J. Christ

Early and Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite the vast research on the early predictors of mathematics achievement, little research has investigated the predictors of various domains of mathematics (e.g., geometry, statistics). The purpose of the present study was to examine the predictive relationship between first-grade early numeracy and computation skills and third-grade mathematics achievement as measured by a state test. Further, we explored the relations between these measures for students who were Below Proficient and Proficient. Findings suggest that proficiency level matters when examining the relation between mathematics skills. Also, there are different patterns of significant predictors depending on the domain of later mathematics achievement and …

Are We At A Watershed Moment For The Quantitative Literacy Movement?: Review Of Shifting Context, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy In Higher Education, By Luke Tunstall, Gizem Karaali, And Victor Piercey, Eds., Maura Mast

Numeracy

Luke Tunstall, Gizem Karaali, and Victor Piercey, eds. 2019. Shifting Concepts, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy in Higher Education. Math Notes 88. (Mathematics Association of America, MAA Press). Print ISBN 978-0-88385-198-2. Electronic ISBN 978-1-61444-324-7.

The thematic approach of the edited MAA Notes volume Shifting Contexts, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy in Higher Education is that the “construct” of quantitative literacy is now fairly stable, but the contexts in which quantitative literacy is taught (and practiced) continue to change. Several chapters give the reader much to consider regarding what constitutes the foundation of this stable core and, relatedly, how quantitative …

Parts Of The Whole: Logical Categories Of Learning: Why Teaching Qr Is Hard, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

This column introduces the reader to an essay by anthropologist Gregory Bateson on the nature of learning. In that essay, he stratifies the learning process into categories based on what aspect of the student’s understanding is required to change in order to accomplish a given learning task. A discussion of the first three categories is followed here by examples from quantitative reasoning tasks and a further example from the ongoing discussion in the community of what numeracy entails. Bateson’s classification of learning into “logical categories” sheds light on what the goals of numeracy ask of both student and teacher, as …

The Numbers We Need: Review Of Shifting Contexts, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy In Higher Education, Edited By Luke Tunstall, Gizem Karaali, And Victor Piercey (2019), John Macinnes

Numeracy

Luke Tunstall, Gizem Karaali, and Victor Piercey, eds. 2019. Shifting Contexts, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy in Higher Education. Math Notes 88. (Mathematics Association of America, MAA Press). Print ISBN 978-0-88385-198-2. Electronic ISBN 978-1-61444-324-7.

Mine is a rather UK-centric view. The ability to understand numbers is increasingly vital for citizenship in a world where almost every argument, no matter how bogus, comes with numbers attached. Maths and stats, however, are too important to leave to the mathematicians and statisticians alone. There are as many varieties of application as there are disciplines and interests. Maths faculty are not there to …

Introducing Maa Notes #88: Shifting Contexts, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy In Higher Education, Samuel L. Tunstall, Gizem Karaali, Victor Piercey

Numeracy

Tunstall, Samuel, Gizem Karaali, and Victor Piercey, eds. 2019. Shifting Contexts, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy in Higher Education (Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America) 258 pp. ISBN 978-1614443247.

This brief essay introduces readers to Shifting Contexts, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy in Higher Education, a new edited volume published by the Mathematical Association of America. We begin by describing the story behind the volume, and then outline its four major parts: "A Bird’s Eye View," "Curriculum for Quantitative Literacy," "Quantitative Literacy in an Institutional Context," and "Perspectives from the Quantitative Literacy Community." We end with an excerpt from …

Crossing The Final Frontier: Exploring The Numeracy Demands Of Texts Read In English Language Arts, Ellen C. Agnello, Kevin M. Agnello

Numeracy

Incited by the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ 2009 Reading Framework and the Common Core State Standards, recent shifts in national education goals have urged English language arts teachers to make curriculum adjustments. One such adjustment is to shift their focus from fiction, which has traditionally dominated the curriculum, to nonfiction. Doing so has the potential to increase students’ exposure to informational texts which often employ numeric modes to represent quantitative data, thus necessitating numeracy knowledge. This article presents a study of 60 nonfiction texts taught in secondary ELA classrooms. Through analysis of these texts, it addresses the questions: Which …

Paired Measures Of Competence And Confidence Illuminate Impacts Of Privilege On College Students, Rachel M. Watson, Edward Nuhfer, Kali Nicholas Moon, Steven Fleisher, Paul Walter, Karl Wirth, Christopher Cogan, Ami Wangeline, Eric Gaze

Numeracy

We seek to understand how the experiences of groups that differ in gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation produce college-level educational performances that differ from the experiences of the dominant majority group. We employ two datasets: a National Database of 24,701 participants and a Paired-Measures Database with 3,323 participants. Both datasets provide demographic information, socioeconomic conditions of status as first-generation student, English as a first language, and interest in majoring in science, and competency scores on understanding science as a way of knowing obtained from the Science Literacy Concept Inventory. The Paired-Measures Database includes additional self-assessed competence ratings that enabled quantifying …

Roots And Seeds: Finding Our Place In The Social Practice Nexus That Is Quantitative Literacy, H. L. Vacher, Nathan D. Grawe

Numeracy

The purpose of our new Roots and Seeds feature is to provide an open-access space to archive first-hand accounts of QL activities that have preceded our journal (2008). The first two contributions in the collection appeared last issue: Linda Sons on the making of what has come to be known as the 1994 Sons Report (Mathematics Association of America), and Dorothy Wallace on her path to the Quantitative Literacy Design Team for Mathematics and Democracy (2001), and the questions that bedeviled them then – and us now. In this issue, we get Rick Gillman’s account of how the committee that …

Developing Numeracy And Problem-Solving Skills By Overcoming Learning Bottlenecks, Anita Lee-Post

Marketing & Supply Chain Faculty Publications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an educational approach to elevating problem-solving and numeracy competencies of business undergraduates to meet workplace demand. The approach is grounded in the theory of constraints following the Decoding the Discipline model. The authors investigated a cognitive bottleneck involving problem modeling and an affective bottleneck concerning low self-efficacy of numeracy and designed specific interventions to address both bottlenecks simultaneously. The authors implemented the proposed approach in an introductory level analytics course in business operations.

Design/methodology/approachThe authors use an empirical study to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in addressing deficiency in …

Review Of The Piaac Numeracy Assessment Framework: Final Report, Dave Tout, Diana Coben, Vince Geiger, Lynda Ginsburg, Kees Hoogland, Terry Maguire, Sue Thomson, Ross Turner

Ross Turner

The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is an international assessment of the proficiency of adults (aged 16-65 years) in key information processing skills (reading, numeracy and Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments). The PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills has revealed that a considerable number of adults in OECD countries possess only limited literacy and numeracy skills. The OECD is currently reviewing the content of the frameworks and cognitive assessment instruments for the 2nd cycle of PIAAC ready for delivery in 2021-22. This report is the result of a review of the numeracy construct and assessment in PIAAC. …

Pisa 2018 Australia School Questionnaire Data [Spss] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SPSS zipped) is a data source for the report: PISA 2018: Reporting Australia’s Results. Volume I Student Performance.

Pisa 2018 Australia School Questionnaire Data [Sas] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SAS zipped) is a data source for the report: PISA 2018: Reporting Australia’s Results. Volume I Student Performance.

Pisa 2018 Australia Student And Achievement Data [Sas] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SAS zipped) is a data source for the report: PISA 2018: Reporting Australia’s Results. Volume I Student Performance.

Pisa 2018 Australia Student And Achievement Data [Spss] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SPSS zipped) is a data source for the report: PISA 2018: Reporting Australia’s Results. Volume I Student Performance.

Towards The Identification And Assessment Of Transversal Skills, Deirdre Goggin, Irene Sheridan, Fjóla Lárusdóttir, Gigja Guðmundsdóttir

Conference Papers

Much has been written in recent decades about transversal skills. The term is often used interchangeably with ‘soft skills’ and ‘transferable skills’. One can also refer to ‘key skills’ and ‘core skills’. The Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) assesses the proficiency of adults specifically three areas: literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments. “These three are considered to be “key information-processing skills” in that they are:
• necessary for fully integrating and participating in the labour market, education and training, and social and civic life;
• highly transferable, in that they are relevant to many social contexts and work …

Viewpoints: Should Teaching Students Who Fail A Literacy And Numeracy Test Be Barred From Teaching?, Lynn D. Sheridan, Nan Bahr

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Starting this month, teaching students who fail or haven't yet taken the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE) will not be able to teach in Victorian schools. Previously, around one in 20 teachers who had failed the test or hadn't taken it yet received provisional registration. Prospective students who took the test late in 2018 received their results on January 11.

Australia’S Literacy And Numeracy Test For Initial Teacher Education Students: Trends In Numeracy For Low- And High-Achieving Students, Jennifer Hall, Simone Zmood

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The numeracy capabilities of pre-service teachers are a recent focus in the Australian educational system. In this article, we discuss findings from an analysis of data from the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Students (LANTITE), which is administered by the Australian Council for Educational Research. In our analysis, we considered numeracy test data from 20 students from one Australian university: those who achieved the 10 highest and the 10 lowest overall numeracy scores in 2016 at this university on their first attempt of the test. We found that these groups clearly have particular characteristics that were linked …

Learning About Numeracy: The Impact Of A Compulsory Unit On Pre-Service Teachers' Understandings And Beliefs, Helen J. Forgasz, Jennifer Hall

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

: In 2015, a new Master of Teaching coursework unit, Numeracy for Learners and Teachers, was introduced at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. The drivers for the establishment of the unit were the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership numeracy standards for graduate teachers and the inclusion of numeracy as a general capability in the Australian Curriculum. In this article, we describe the content and organisation of the unit. An evaluation was conducted with students in each of the years 2015-2017. Data included pre- and post-unit surveys and interviews. Findings indicated that students had fairly good numeracy skills on …

Principals’ Experiences Leading Strategic Planning In High-Performing Primary Schools In Trinidad And Tobago, Adesh Reitoo Ramlal

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the education system in Trinidad and Tobago, only 60% of students are achieving mastery in literacy and numeracy as documented by national tests. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore principals’ experiences leading strategic planning designed to increase achievement in literacy and numeracy in 8 high-performing primary schools in Trinidad and Tobago. Fullan’s change process theory provided the framework for the study. Data were collected from interviews with 8 principals. Data analysis included coding, categorizing, and identifying themes. Findings indicated that principals plan, implement, and monitor the facilitation of change processes through in-depth strategies in teaching …

Pacific Islands Literacy & Numeracy Assessment 2018 Regional Report, Pacific Community Educational Quality And Assessment Programme

Assessment and Reporting

The Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA) was developed by SPC’s Educational Quality & Assessment Programme (EQAP) to provide a snapshot of how Pacific youth are faring in the skills essential to progress through school and life - reading, writing, numbers, operations, measurements and data. The 2018 assessment is the third to be conducted since 2012, and covers Year 4 and Year 6 students from across 15 Pacific Island countries: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Findings include growth in both …

Three Formative Questions In The Quantitative Literacy Movement, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

In this essay we remember early discussions attempting to answer three questions that played a formative role in our understanding of and approach to numeracy, quantitative literacy, and quantitative reasoning: (1) What is numeracy? (2) Should the QL movement promote any specific kind of pedagogy? (3) What organizational structure will best support QL?

As the QL movement has progressed, these three questions continue to be difficult to answer. As a result, they have been useful formative guides for institutions and organizations seeking to improve the quantitative reasoning of students. Now that the quantitative literacy movement has a firmer standing in …

Numeracy And Social Justice: A Wide, Deep, And Longstanding Intersection, Kira Hamman, Victor Piercey, Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

We discuss the connection between the numeracy and social justice movements both in historical context and in its modern incarnation. The intersection between numeracy and social justice encompasses a wide variety of disciplines and quantitative topics, but within that variety there are important commonalities. We examine the importance of sound quantitative measures for understanding social issues and the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration in this work. Particular reference is made to the papers in the first part of the Numeracy special collection on social justice, which appear in this issue.

On "Icky" Data, The Political Classroom, And Towards Equity And Social Justice In Mathematics Education: A Conversation With Tonya Bartell, Samuel L. Tunstall, Oyemolade Osibodu, Tonya Gau Bartell

Numeracy

Tonya G. Bartell, ed. 2018. Towards Equity and Social Justice in Mathematics Education (Switzerland: Springer International Publishing) 341 pp. ISBN 978-3319929064.

This brief interview with Tonya Bartell introduces Towards Equity and Social Justice in Mathematics Education to the Numeracy audience. The interviewers also discuss with Tonya connections between quantitative literacy and mathematics for social justice, particularly in the context of US K-12 schooling. Tonya shares her perspective on topics ranging from the placement of quantitative literacy in K-12 mathematics education and how one might get started in incorporating a social justice lens into their teaching to paradigms for research …