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Full-Text Articles in Science and Mathematics Education
Quantitative Literacy Interventions At University Of Cape Town: Effects Of Separation From Academic Disciplines, Vera Frith
Numeracy
The aim of the Numeracy Centre at the University of Cape Town is to develop students’ quantitative literacy (QL) in a manner consistent with their programmes of study and intended roles in the community. Our theoretical perspective on the nature of QL is in line with that of the New Literacies Studies and sees academic QL as practices in different academic disciplinary contexts. This means that for us the ideal curriculum structure for developing QL would fully integrate it into the teaching of the disciplines. This is in practice not achievable in most cases, especially since many students do not …
Numeracy, Financial Literacy, And Financial Decision-Making, Annamaria Lusardi
Numeracy, Financial Literacy, And Financial Decision-Making, Annamaria Lusardi
Numeracy
Financial decisions, be they related to asset building or debt management, require the capacity to do calculations, including some complex ones. But how numerate are individuals, in particular when it comes to calculations related to financial decisions? Studies and surveys implemented in both the United States and in other countries that are described in this paper show the level of numeracy among the population to be very low. Moreover, lack of numeracy is not only widespread but is particularly severe among some demographic groups, such as women, the elderly, and those with low educational attainment. This has potential consequences for …
Envisioning A Quantitative Studies Center: A Liberal Arts Perspective, Gizem Karaali, Philip I. Choi, Sara Owsley Sood, Eric B. Grosfils
Envisioning A Quantitative Studies Center: A Liberal Arts Perspective, Gizem Karaali, Philip I. Choi, Sara Owsley Sood, Eric B. Grosfils
Numeracy
Several academic institutions are searching for ways to help students develop their quantitative reasoning abilities and become more adept at higher-level tasks that involve quantitative skills. In this note we study the particular way Pomona College has framed this issue within its own context and what it plans to do about it. To this end we describe our efforts as members of a campus-wide committee that was assigned the duty of investigating the feasibility of founding a quantitative studies center on our campus. These efforts involved analysis of data collected through a faculty questionnaire, discipline-specific input obtained from each departmental …
A Rubric For Assessing Quantitative Reasoning In Written Arguments, Nathan D. Grawe, Neil S. Lutsky, Christopher J. Tassava
A Rubric For Assessing Quantitative Reasoning In Written Arguments, Nathan D. Grawe, Neil S. Lutsky, Christopher J. Tassava
Numeracy
This paper introduces a rubric for assessing QR in student papers and analyzes the inter-rater reliability of the instrument based on a reading session involving 11 participants. Despite the disciplinary diversity of the group (which included a faculty member from the arts and literature, two staff members, and representatives from five natural and social science departments), the rubric produced reliable measures of QR use and proficiency in a sample of student papers. Readers agreed on the relevance and extent of QR in 75.0 and 81.9 percent of cases respectively (corresponding to Cohen’s κ= 0.611 and 0.693). A four-category measure of …
Engaging Math-Avoidant College Students, M. Paul Latiolais, Wendi Laurence
Engaging Math-Avoidant College Students, M. Paul Latiolais, Wendi Laurence
Numeracy
This paper is an informal, personal account of how we, as two college teachers, became interested in math anxiety, decided to explore it amongst students at our institution in order to inform our teaching, and became convinced that the massive problem is math avoidance. We tried discussion groups, but few students attended, although those that did made useful suggestions. Thus informed, we designed an innovative course, Confronting College Mathematics as a Humanities course with the possibility of credit toward the math requirement, but it was undersubscribed in its first offering and had to be canceled. How can we get college …
Integration With Writing Programs: A Strategy For Quantitative Reasoning Program Development, Nathan D. Grawe, Carol A. Rutz
Integration With Writing Programs: A Strategy For Quantitative Reasoning Program Development, Nathan D. Grawe, Carol A. Rutz
Numeracy
As an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor, quantitative reasoning (QR) risks falling through the cracks between the traditional “silos” of higher education. This article describes one strategy for developing a truly cross-campus QR initiative: leverage the existing structures of campus writing programs by placing QR in the context of argument. We first describe the integration of Carleton College’s Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge initiative with the Writing Program. Based on our experience, we argue that such an approach leads to four benefits: it reflects important aspects of QR often overlooked by other approaches; it defuses the commonly raised objection that QR is …
False Positives And Referral Bias: Content For A Quantitative Literacy Course, Stuart Boersma, Teri Willard
False Positives And Referral Bias: Content For A Quantitative Literacy Course, Stuart Boersma, Teri Willard
Numeracy
An extended study of accuracy in medical screening is presented as a useful application to increase students’ quantitative reasoning skills. Two detailed examples are presented. The first explores the frequency of obtaining false positive results from a medical screening tool while the second examines the issue of referral bias and its effect on the apparent sensitivity and specificity of the screening tool. Results from student assessments indicate that the activity increases one’s ability to define terms such as “false positive” and “false negative” and increases one’s ability to read and compute with information obtained from a two-way table. Teacher assessment …