Quantitative Literacy Interventions at University of Cape Town: Effects of Separation from Academic Disciplines

dc.creator	Vera Frith
dc.date	2012-01-01T00:00:00Z
dc.date.accessioned	2015-07-20T22:21:43Z
dc.date.available	2015-07-20T22:21:43Z
dc.identifier	1936-4660
dc.identifier	https://doaj.org/article/b97d88398f5c446dbd0c4bc0683d9411
dc.identifier.uri	http://evidence.thinkportal.org/handle/123456789/20476
dc.description	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 have the necessary foundations of mathematical and statistical knowledge and skills. The unavoidable deviation from the ideal curriculum structure presents challenges to the design of QL interventions. Two illustrative examples which display different degrees of separation from the disciplinary teaching are described and discussed. This discussion is based on lecturers’ reflections on the teaching experience and on student evaluations. The ‘stand-alone’ QL course for Humanities and Law students, which uses a context-based approach, is the least integrated with the disciplinary curriculum, and presents challenges in terms of tensions in the classroom between the contexts and the mathematical and statistical content, as well as challenges in terms of student motivation. The QL intervention for medical students is more closely integrated into the medical curriculum and presents fewer challenges. Both interventions are intended to provide ‘foundations’ in terms of QL and suffer from difficulties in providing students with authentic motivation.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	University of South Florida Libraries
dc.relation	http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.5.1.3
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/1936-4660
dc.rights	CC BY-NC
dc.source	Numeracy, Vol 5, Iss 1, p 3 (2012)
dc.subject	Quantitative literacy
dc.subject	Numeracy
dc.subject	Curriculum
dc.subject	Higher Education
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Mathematics
dc.subject	QA1-939
dc.subject	Science
dc.subject	Q
dc.subject	DOAJ:Mathematics
dc.subject	DOAJ:Mathematics and Statistics
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Mathematics
dc.subject	QA1-939
dc.subject	Science
dc.subject	Q
dc.subject	DOAJ:Mathematics
dc.subject	DOAJ:Mathematics and Statistics
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Mathematics
dc.subject	QA1-939
dc.subject	Science
dc.subject	Q
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Mathematics
dc.subject	QA1-939
dc.subject	Science
dc.subject	Q
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Mathematics
dc.subject	QA1-939
dc.subject	Science
dc.subject	Q
dc.title	Quantitative Literacy Interventions at University of Cape Town: Effects of Separation from Academic Disciplines
dc.type	article