Presentation given to the Higher Education Network Annual Meeting of the British Geological Society, January 16th, 2013

1. Count on us? A crisis of numeracy in
geography and related disciplines?

2. Source:
http://shepherdandflockfarnham.blogspot.co.
uk/2012/07/is-your-glass-half-full-or-half-
empty.html
… or, which glass is it?

3. The problem
 The British Academy is deeply concerned
that the UK is weak in quantitative skills,
in particular but not exclusively in the
social sciences and the humanities. This
deficit has serious implications for the
future of the UK‟s status as a world leader
in research and education, for the
employability of our graduates, and for the
competiveness of the UK‟s economy.
 Society Counts. A Position Statement from the
British Academy (2012).

4. Some evidence
 Most social science students graduate
with only a narrow range of QM skills, little
confidence in using them and little
practice in applying them. Few students
use any QM in their project or dissertation
work, and even fewer undertake
secondary analysis of existing data
– MacInnes (2010)

5. Some evidence
 Although data now pervade our lives and
our way of understanding the world we
live in, many people are so frightened at
the sight of numbers that they are unable
to engage with them. This is a disaster for
those individuals, and also for the nation
as a whole. Increasingly we need people
who are at ease with data, in their many
forms, and able to interpret them.
 The Future of Statistics in Our Schools and
Colleges (2012)

6. Some evidence
 In a survey of 24 countries, England, Wales
and Northern Ireland had the lowest levels of
participation in upper secondary
mathematics.
 They were the only countries in which fewer
than 20% of upper secondary students study
maths. This includes all mathematics
qualifications at this level, but excludes
GCSE retakes.
– Is the UK an outlier? An international comparison
of upper secondary mathematics education.
Nuffield Foundation (2010)

7. Some evidence
 UK is ranked 28th of 65 in the 2009
international comparison in maths of 15
year olds (PISA)

8. Source: The Future of Statistics in our
Schools and Colleges (Porkess, 2012)

9.  All of which could be a problem to
geography and related disciplines
because…

10. Subject benchmark: geography (2007)
 §3.12:
– All geographers should be conversant with a
substantial range of analytical and observational
strategies, including most or all of the following: social
survey and interviewing methods; geographical field
research; laboratory-based analysis (both scientific
and computational); quantitative analysis; qualitative
analysis; and modelling strategies. Students should
also be familiar with the developing technology
associated with these strategies, such as computer
packages for statistical and qualitative analysis,
specialist computing and remote sensing.

11. Subject benchmark: Earth sciences,
environmental sciences and
environmental studies
 §3.10:
– The graduate key skills that should be developed in ES3
degree programmes are:
 appreciating issues of sample selection, accuracy, precision
and uncertainty
 during collection, recording and analysis of data in the field and
laboratory
 preparing, processing, interpreting and presenting data, using
appropriate
 qualitative and quantitative techniques and packages including
geographic information systems
 solving numerical problems using computer and non-computer-
based techniques
 using the internet critically as a means of communication and a
source of information.

12. About me and my institution
 I am a human geographer at the University of
Bristol
 Typically students hold three As or AAB at A
level. Of current year 1 (n = 143)
– 58% have an A level in maths or statistics
– 56% have a science A level
– 5% self-rate their maths as excellent
– 45% self-rate as good
– 40% as adequate
– 10% as poor

13. About me and my institution
 All of our students have to study: descriptive
statistics, inferential statistics, relational
statistics, multilevel modelling, GIS, principle
of scientific computing
 Physical students as above, omitting
multilevel modelling but include geostatistics
and process modelling
 The main software we use is R
– Open source, cross-platform, well supported
 Issues of sample bias and external validity in what I
am saying here!

14. In a week 1 test of numeracy
Self-rating Mean
Excellent 73%
Good 70%
Adequate 65%
Poor 50%
Maths A level 70%
Without maths 61%
Science A level 69%
Without 62%
(All) (66%)

15. Examples of ‘easy’ questions
 What is the square root of 400?
– 97% answered correctly
 There are one hundred students, of which
one quarter are male. Of these, one fifth
are able to read a map. What percentage
of the students are female?
– 96% answered correctly
 What is 2 divided by 20 written to one
decimal place?
– 96% answered correctly

16. Examples of ‘difficult’ questions
 What is the common logarithm (log) of
1000?
– 41% answered correctly
 “Children living in neighbourhoods with
more criminal activity are more likely to
commit crimes as adults.” In this
statement, childhood neighbourhood
crime rate is the…? (select one of primary
variable, dependent variable, independent
variable, none of the above).
– 36% answered correctly

17. Also asked them some attitudinal
questions
 Which of the following words best
describes you attitude towards maths?
– Anxious: 17%
– Curious 6%
– Fearful: 10%
– Interested: 24%
– Keen: 6%
– Neutral: 25%
– Reluctant: 11%

18. Learning quantitative methods…
S Agr Agree Disagre S Dis
Important for my 50% 49% 1% 0%
education
Understand 66% 34% 0% 0%
Research
Better geographer 45% 51% 4% 0%
Get a job 43% 47% 10% 0%
Scientific debate 45% 51% 4% 0%
Social debate 20% 61% 20% 0%
More important for 4% 17% 58% 21%
physical geography
Of not interest at all 1% 7% 51% 41%

19. An on-going survey of teachers
 Please tick any of the following quantitative skills that you
teach or use with your students.

20. An on-going survey of teachers
 Which of the following GIS tools do you use? Please tick all
that apply.

21. An on-going survey of teachers
 Which, if any, of the following statistical methods do you
teach? Please tick all that apply.
The others are: t test; Nearest neighbour; statistical
mapping, mean centre, bipolar semantics

22. An on-going survey of teachers
 How confident are you in your knowledge of the following
methods:

23. In the Future of Statistics report
 Geography comes out well.
– “There are many opportunities for the use of
statistics in geography, including sampling
and data collection, data display and
interpretation. Many students experience
these through their fieldwork. In addition, it
is common for teachers to introduce students
to techniques, such as Spearman‟s rank
correlation, that are beyond the strict
requirements of the GCSE syllabuses.”
 (p. 73, emphasis added)

24. The importance of fieldwork
 Geography is better at teaching statistics
in context than the disciplines of maths
and statistics are!

25. Source:
http://livescripts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/crisi
s-what-crisis-exam-composition.html

26. Nevertheless, some challenges…
 Fieldwork is under threat in schools
– Costly, disruptive, difficult to assess
 The teaching and use of geospatial
technologies in schools
– Professional knowledge, providing the
computational infrastructure
 The (suspected) reduction of quantitative
content in human geography
 Problems of choice and competition
– At all levels of education

27. Some challenges…
 Embedding quantitative methods in
curricula
 Should we really be teaching 19th/20th
century statistics in an age of „big data‟
(where the sample  population)?
 Getting the balance between theory and
data exploration
– See http://www.r-bloggers.com/data-driven-
science-is-a-failure-of-imagination/

28. Source:
http://shepherdandflockfarnham.blogspot.co.
uk/2012/07/is-your-glass-half-full-or-half-
empty.html
to the right
✗
✓
Nevertheless, I think it is the glass