Numeracy Practices and Numeracy Skills among Adults

2018

International Journal of Lifelong Education

To what extent do favourable job characteristics contribute to the variation in numeracy skills between countries? Based on theory of maintenance and further development of pre-existing skills, this is explored by applying data on numeracy skills among employed persons in seven European countries participating in the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Regression analyses are used to examine the extent to which numeracy skills vary with job characteristics and education levels across the seven countries, when controlling for industrial sector, work hours, demographic variables (gender, age, Western and Non-Western immigrant background), cultural capital (books at home and parental education level). The findings indicate that job characteristics and the individuals' educational level have large and equal statistical impact on the total skills variation in the seven countries. However, regarding the country-differences, variations in education level play a lesser role than job characteristics.

2019

In this article, terms and the state of research on adult numeracy are compiled in a systematic way. The findings and theories are selected according to their relation to the German-language discourse of adult education and at the same time embedded in a historical context as well as in international discourse. Many recent findings confirm Jean Lave’s approach in that numeracy differs from school mathematics in the high relevance of rules of thumb and estimates as well as in less formal procedures. Numeracy is therefore often not understood as mathematics and remains rather invisible. Numeracy practices are based on social power relations. The assertion of one’s own interests is also based on numeracy—for example in financial literacy, in the health system or in the use of statistical data. Last but not least, numeracy skills and practices go hand in hand with better living conditions.

2009

This report provides an overview of existing research on adult numeracy, with a strong focus on the United Kingdom but also including other countries. The emphasis is on poor numeracy: its antecedents and effects, teaching and learning to overcome it, and the potential use of ICT and mobile technologies in that pursuit.

Adult Skills in Focus

Adult Learning, 2008

Many adults are mathematically ill-prepared for the future. Globalization and rapid changes in technology have created a need for adults to update their skill sets for career sustainability and to process a myriad of information for decision-making as world citizens. In these tumultuous economic times, strong mathematics skills enhance employability by increasing job performance, productivity, and access to further education and training. According to a report conducted by the Confederation of British Industry (2009), 735 surveyed employers identified workers' poor mathematics skills as negatively impacting customer service and expressed concern over the low technological abilities found in the available workforce. There is predicted to be a 38% increase in the number of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology occupations between 2008 and 2013 (U.S. Department of Education, 2000). The products, services, standards of living, and economic and military securities depend on citizens having the necessary mathematics and sciences skills. In the data-driven culture of the United States, basic calculation, estimation, data analysis, and probability interpretation are all necessary for active participation in a civil society. Patient numeracy is necessary for healthcare decision-making including self-managing the chronic conditions of a disease and analyzing the risks and probabilities of medical interventions. An understanding of appropriate quantitative reasoning is crucial for examining complex concepts, such as a cost-benefit analysis of proposed universal healthcare legislation. This critical numeracy self-empowers decision-making by avoiding an indiscriminate dependence on "experts" who may be using politically skewed quantitative arguments. Steen (1990, pp. 211-231) punctuates this susceptibility coming with innumeracy, "An innumerate citizen is as vulnerable today as the illiterate peasant of Gutenberg's time." American Adults Have Low Numeracy Dispositions A numerate citizenry is every bit as essential as a literate citizenry. Regardless of this reality, only 20% of United States males believe low numeracy skills limit their ability to obtain a job and 80% believe innumeracy has no effect on their job opportunities (Steen, 2004). American adults have low numeracy dispositions which are the attitudes and beliefs to value numeracy as a

2017

In the 2012 PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills of 23 industrialised countries, the UK (England & NI) scored below average on adult numeracy. Several recommendations focus on the need for (some) individuals in the population to undergo training. Yet, even in “high-performing countries” like the Netherlands, many adults (1.5M) score at or below PIAAC Level 1 (sometimes designated as “functionally innumerate”). The question arises as to how all of these people manage in important domains of their lives. In this article we aim to consider the context of the exercise of numeracy by adults, drawing on earlier research in mathematics education. We examine a recent conception of an adult’s ‘literate environment’ (EU HLG on Literacy, 2012), and extend this to reflect on the idea of an adult’s ‘numerate environment’. We consider the range of practices that particular adults may engage in, and the demands that these may make on the adult, the affordances the practices may offer; the latter include t...

2019

This work draws on the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) survey. Last year a first review was conducted on the PIAAC Numeracy Framework (Tout. et al., 2017). In 2018 and 2019 the framework for the second cycle of PIAAC will be developed. This second cycle of the PIAAC survey aims to update the data about the numeracy skills of adults in different countries around the World (Hoogland, Diez-Palomar, Maguire, 2019). The objective of this paper is to highlight some relevant findings from literature on the concept numeracy in order to discuss a potential enrichment of the PIAAC Numeracy Assessment Framework (NAF).

Oecd Publishing, 2009

Zeitschrift für Weiterbildungsforschung

Numeracy practices are always dependent on the social context in which they emerge. These contexts, however, are unstable because of a range of technological and socio-political changes. How does this instability affect people's agency in the world? After reviewing key approaches to numeracy practices research, we distil key findings from recent numeracy studies. We introduce the concept of the numerate environment to examine the context in which opportunities, supports and demands present themselves for people's numeracy development, explaining how cultural-historical activity theory can be used to analyse the effects of changes in numerate environments. We consider examples of social trends likely to effect such changes and conclude with implications of shifts in people's numerate environment for future educational provision, policy and research.