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We live in an age where vast amounts of information can be accessed on the Internet. Much of this information is quantitative in nature and students (and adults) must be equipped to analyze the information as they sift through the data to make decisions in their everyday lives. And, as "big data" analyses move from pure research applications to business, education, health, and government settings where our graduates will be working, this imperative becomes more critical. Even in our own institutions of higher education, we are crunching large data sets of student information to monitor and predict student performance and success. All of these situations require strong quantitative reasoning skills.
WHAT IS QUANTITATIVE REASONING?
Quantitative reasoning. Quantitative literacy. Quantitative fluency. Numeracy. These are often-used terms when discussing a key learning outcome for undergraduate education. Here are a few highprofile examples of calls for prioritizing such quantitative skills:
* Quantitative literacy is one of the LEAP (Liberal Education for America's Promise) Essential Learning Outcomes (ELOs) developed by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U), one of a number of practical intellectual skills, including inquiry and analysis, critical and creative thinking, written and oral communication, information literacy and teamwork, and problem solving.
* The Lumina Foundation's Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP) calls this skill quantitative fluency and places it, like LEAP, among several important intellectual skills all students should attain, including analytic inquiry, information literacy, engaging diverse perspectives, and communication fluency.
* The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) Senior College and University Commission has recently shifted its focus to five core competencies-writing, oral communication, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, and information literacy-in its revised institutional review process.
The ability to think quantitatively clearly plays a central role in undergraduate education. But what do terms like quantitative reasoning, quantitative literacy, and quantitative fluency really mean for student learning, the curriculum, program development, faculty development, or accreditation? Why is it such an important outcome? How do we teach and measure it? Who is responsible for ensuring that students achieve this competency?
By one definition, quantitative reasoning (QR) is the application of basic mathematics skills, such as algebra, to the analysis and interpretation of real-world quantitative information in the context of a discipline or an interdisciplinary problem to draw...