The quantitative literacy of South African school-leavers who qualify for higher education

Abstract

There is an articulation gap for many students between the literacy practices developed at school and those demanded by higher education. While the school sector is often well attuned to the school-leaving assessments, it may not be as aware of the implicit quantitative literacy (QL) demands placed on students in higher education. The National Benchmark Test (NBT) in QL provides diagnostic information to inform teaching and learning. The performance of a large sample of school-leavers who wrote the NBT QL test was investigated (1) to demonstrate how school-leavers performed on this QL test, (2) to explore the relationship between performance on this test and on cognate school-leaving subjects and (3) to provide school teachers and curriculum advisors with a sense of the QL demands made on their students. Descriptive statistics were used to describe performance and linear regression to explore the relationships between performance in the NBT QL test and on the school subjects Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy. Only 13% of the NBT QL scores in the sample were classified as proficient and the majority of school-leavers would need support to cope with the QL demands of higher education. The results in neither Mathematics nor Mathematical Literacy were good predictors of performance on the NBT QL test. Examination of performance on selected individual items revealed that many students have difficulty with quantitative language and with interpreting data in tables. Given that QL is bound to context, it is important that teachers develop QL practices within their disciplinary contexts.

The National Benchmark Quantitative Literacy Test for Applicants to South African Higher Education

“…In a study of the relationship between the NBT QL scores and the NSC Mathematics results of 6,271 students, the correlation coefficient was 0.63, indicating a fair degree of convergent validity (Prince and Frith 2017). In a similar study of the results of 56,662 students, the correlation coefficient was 0.58, which while still indicating some convergence, is closer to the cut-off value of r = 0.5 used in Prince (2017).…”

“…For example, comparing the results for a large sample of test-takers revealed that in general the NBTP QL scores were about 9 percentage points lower than the NSC Mathematics scores and the NBT QL scores were about 27 percentage points lower than the NSC Mathematical Literacy results. Less than 50% of those who scored at the highest level for NSC Mathematics and less than 5% of those who scored at the highest level for NSC Mathematical Literacy obtained scores classified as Proficient in the NBTP QL test (Prince and Frith 2017).…”

“…Both the results of the assessment of the entry-level QL competency of students and the analysis of the relationship between these NBTP QL scores and students' school-leaving results point to the need for a more comprehensive systemic response, requiring curriculum change at many levels (Prince and Frith 2017). There is, however, a reluctance across the higher education sector to embrace the idea of testing, which is generally viewed with scepticism, and thus to recognise the value of the information provided by the NBTP QL test results.…”

“…There was a wide range of NBT QL scores associated with any particular NSC Mathematics result, with this range being wider the higher the NSC Mathematics result. For example in the Prince and Frith (2017) study, for students who obtained over 80% for Mathematics, the NBT QL scores ranged from less than 25% to nearly 100%. Even a low mark for NSC Mathematics was associated with quite a large range of possible NBT QL scores.…”

Academic and quantitative literacy in higher education: Relationship with cognate school-leaving subjects

“…It has been acknowledged that there are significant differences between schooling in the Further Education and Training (FET) phase and higher education in South Africa -a so-called "articulation gap" -which is "manifested in students as a lack of sound foundations for tertiary studies and has a profound effect on students' ability to respond positively to higher education programmes" (Scott, Yeld and Hendry 2007, 42). Research studies have shown that one of the most important aspects of the articulation gap is the mismatch between prospective students' academic literacies and the expectations of higher education in terms of their literacy and numeracy practices (Frith and Prince 2016;Prince and Frith 2017;Cliff 2015;Weideman 2019).…”