Decimal Usage in the Occupational World

Abstract

An examination of courses of study in arithmetic indicates that it is common practice to have pupils spend the better part of a year, usually the fifth or sixth year in school, studying decimal fractions.1 Reports indicate that the level of mastery is low.2 Various educational surveys3 report that adults have little or no use for decimal fractions in their non-occupational life. Is it not therefore appropriate to inquire under what conditions the students of today will encounter a need for knowledge of decimal fractions in their adult living? If the non-occupational world will make little demand on their knowledge of decimal fractions, will the demands of the occupa tional world be sufficiently strong to justify the teaching of decimal frac tions throughout the larger part of a school year? The survey herein reported undertook to answer the above question concerning decimal usage in the occupational world. Research techniques were devised so that over 68,000 persons employed in eighty-nine industries representative of the industrial life of our country could be surveyed to ascer tain to what extent employees were called upon to use decimal fractions at their work. The data were collected by means of the personal-industrial