How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming College Freshmen? by Dr. Matthew Salomone
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Numeracy is often referred to as the habit of mind to see real-world problems through a quantitative lens. Typical QR programs in higher education aim to build this habit in students by the time they graduate — but to what extent do students already have this habit when they arrive? I will briefly review some of what is known about incoming freshmen’s quantitative inclinations, and describe an ongoing project to measure their quantitative habit of mind in a somewhat subversive fashion.
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How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming College Freshmen? by Dr. Matthew Salomone
- 1. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Northeast Consortium for Quantitative Literacy XVIII Yale University — May 9, 2015 Matt Salomone Assistant Professor, Mathematics Department Director, Math Services Coordinator, Quantity Across the Curriculum Bridgewater State University Bridgewater, MA 023251 1This work is supported by a Summer Grant from the Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship at BSU.
- 2. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead
- 3. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Do Freshmen “Want to Do the Dishes?”
- 4. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Do Freshmen “Want to Do the Dishes?” How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? To what extent does a quantitative habit of mind exist among incoming freshman students? Use their extemporaneous persuasive writing to correlate: 1 Engagement & success with quant evidence vs. Student characteristics 2 vs. Writing readiness score 3 vs. Retention into second year
- 5. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Do Freshmen “Want to Do the Dishes?” How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? To what extent does a quantitative habit of mind exist among incoming freshman students? Use their extemporaneous persuasive writing to correlate: 1 Engagement & success with quant evidence vs. Student characteristics 2 vs. Writing readiness score 3 vs. Retention into second year Frame & Features of Assessment 1 Holistic scoring for extent & quality of QR (Modified QuIRK) 2 “State of nature” measurement (Not a “QR task”) 3 Potential new proxies for early math/QR course success?
- 6. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Verbal Skill = Key Enabler of Quantitative Reasoning Reading Comprehension High cognitive reading load impairs QR success (Gillmor et al. 2015) Unusually high-quality attention required to avoid bias (Kahneman 2011) Basic logical/statistical vocabulary often missing (Bennett, NNN list)
- 7. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Verbal Skill = Key Enabler of Quantitative Reasoning Reading Comprehension High cognitive reading load impairs QR success (Gillmor et al. 2015) Unusually high-quality attention required to avoid bias (Kahneman 2011) Basic logical/statistical vocabulary often missing (Bennett, NNN list) Writing Fluency Writing at core of many QR assessment rubrics (LEAP &c.) Difficulty expressing simple Q ideas with precision (Schield 2008) Students frequently miss opportunities to use QR (Miller 2004, Rutz & Grawe 2009)
- 8. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Verbal Skill = Key Enabler of Quantitative Reasoning Reading Comprehension High cognitive reading load impairs QR success (Gillmor et al. 2015) Unusually high-quality attention required to avoid bias (Kahneman 2011) Basic logical/statistical vocabulary often missing (Bennett, NNN list) Writing Fluency Writing at core of many QR assessment rubrics (LEAP &c.) Difficulty expressing simple Q ideas with precision (Schield 2008) Students frequently miss opportunities to use QR (Miller 2004, Rutz & Grawe 2009) Key idea: It is never enough to assess only computational skill — QR always involves a trade of information both out of a context (reading) and back into a context (writing).
- 9. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Facts on the Ground at Bridgewater State University BSU is a comprehensive, Masters-large university focused on undergraduate education and with a heritage as a teacher-preparatory normal school. By the numbers ≈ 8500 undergraduates 60% female 60% are one or more: 1 Of color (15%) 2 1st generation (50%) 3 Pell eligible (25%) Hum/SS 47% Educa.on 27% Business 15% Sci/Math 11% Freshman Class of 2013 N = 1436 Average SAT-Math: 501 Average Elem. Alg.: 78.5 Average SAT-Verb: 492 Average Read. Comp.: 85.5 Developmental math: 35.2% Developmental writing: 14.4%
- 10. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Writing Placement – Process & Prompt Locally developed exam feeds: (60 minutes) ENGL 101 + ENGL 144 ENGL 101 ENGL 102 Writing Rhetorically (3 cr.) Writing Rhetorically (3 cr.) Writing Rhet. w Sources (3 cr.) Academic Strategies (1 cr.) Score 3 or SAT-V 500 Score 4 or SAT-V 600 195 students (14.4%) 1,082 students (75.3%) 150 students (10.4%)
- 11. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Writing Placement – Process & Prompt Locally developed exam feeds: (60 minutes) ENGL 101 + ENGL 144 ENGL 101 ENGL 102 Writing Rhetorically (3 cr.) Writing Rhetorically (3 cr.) Writing Rhet. w Sources (3 cr.) Academic Strategies (1 cr.) Score 3 or SAT-V 500 Score 4 or SAT-V 600 195 students (14.4%) 1,082 students (75.3%) 150 students (10.4%) Essay is rhetorical in nature — students must construct an argument based on ≈ 1 page of evidence. Beginning 2012, some evidence is quantitative.
- 12. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Writing Placement – Process & Prompt Locally developed exam feeds: (60 minutes) ENGL 101 + ENGL 144 ENGL 101 ENGL 102 Writing Rhetorically (3 cr.) Writing Rhetorically (3 cr.) Writing Rhet. w Sources (3 cr.) Academic Strategies (1 cr.) Score 3 or SAT-V 500 Score 4 or SAT-V 600 195 students (14.4%) 1,082 students (75.3%) 150 students (10.4%) Essay is rhetorical in nature — students must construct an argument based on ≈ 1 page of evidence. Beginning 2012, some evidence is quantitative. Significant differences in math skill vs. writing placement 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 TENGL ENGL101 ENGL102 Accuplacer Elementary Algebra Score 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 TENGL ENGL101 ENGL102 SAT-‐Mathema3cs Score
- 13. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead The Road Ahead: Assessing Responses for Extent & Quality Need to re-assess writing samples (n = 120) for QR extent and quality. Modified QuIRK rubric Two scorers per sample Sum of scores Relevance Extent of Use Quality of Use None No potential use of numbers, or misc. use only 1 No explicit numbers/QR used 1 Misses opportunity for QR completely, even for back- ground/context Peripheral Potential uses of numbers to provide useful de- tail/background/reference 2 1–2 instances of explicit numeri- cal evidence / QR 2 Uses numerical evidence incon- sistently or non-contextually Central Potential uses of numbers to address central theme 3 Explicit QR used throughout ar- gument 3 Uses numerical evidence consis- tently and in context, but some op- portunities are missed 4 Uses numerical evidence throughout, effectively, insightfully, and thoroughly
- 14. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Ways of “Closing the Loop” with this Study If QR engagement (extent) is ⊕ correlated with writing placement QR/writing workshops with high school partners could reduce developmental writing placements & forward-place more students into ENGL 102
- 15. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Ways of “Closing the Loop” with this Study If QR engagement (extent) is ⊕ correlated with writing placement QR/writing workshops with high school partners could reduce developmental writing placements & forward-place more students into ENGL 102 If extent & quality varies significantly across student characteristics Correlate longitudinally with extent & quality at capstone to look for “value added”; offer focused faculty development for instructors of student groups who are least engaged/successful
- 16. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Ways of “Closing the Loop” with this Study If QR engagement (extent) is ⊕ correlated with writing placement QR/writing workshops with high school partners could reduce developmental writing placements & forward-place more students into ENGL 102 If extent & quality varies significantly across student characteristics Correlate longitudinally with extent & quality at capstone to look for “value added”; offer focused faculty development for instructors of student groups who are least engaged/successful If extent & quality is ⊕ correlated with 1st-2nd year retention (Controlling for other known predictors of retention) Targeted interventions, esp. in first-year writing courses, to increase QR engagement could have positive retention benefits
- 17. How “Quantitatively Inclined” are Incoming Freshmen? Matt Salomone The Motivation QR & Verbal Skills Context @ BSU Writing Placement Assessment Ahead Ways of “Closing the Loop” with this Study If QR engagement (extent) is ⊕ correlated with writing placement QR/writing workshops with high school partners could reduce developmental writing placements & forward-place more students into ENGL 102 If extent & quality varies significantly across student characteristics Correlate longitudinally with extent & quality at capstone to look for “value added”; offer focused faculty development for instructors of student groups who are least engaged/successful If extent & quality is ⊕ correlated with 1st-2nd year retention (Controlling for other known predictors of retention) Targeted interventions, esp. in first-year writing courses, to increase QR engagement could have positive retention benefits We hope to have initial results by the end of summer & will be happy to share!