Abstract
Quantitative literacy is the ability to solve problems using mathematical and statistical information that is represented in various forms, including visual, written and mathematical forms. It is central to many of the disciplines within higher education. In this paper, we examine a particular quantitative literacy event within an undergraduate applied mechanics module and, in so doing, argue that teaching and learning are cultural performances of individuals’ relations to, in this case, quantitative literacy. Furthermore, we apply a framework for analysing the quantitative literacy demands present within higher education. By applying this framework in a critically reflexive manner, we demonstrate how the researcher similarly engages in a cultural performance in relation to quantitative literacy. We use this anecdotal example to argue that the application of analytical frameworks is inherently performative in nature, and propose the need for a meta-frame for understanding teaching, learning, and the frameworks through which they are viewed, as performance. This has implications for higher education more broadly in that, we argue, the frameworks used promote particular relations to lived teaching and learning experiences, and position teachers, learners, researchers and curriculum developers in particular ways.
Highlights
Barton and Hamilton (2000: 8) describe literacy practices as ‘the general cultural ways of utilizing written language which people draw upon in their lives
Teaching, Learning, and Frameworks as Performance The framework deployed in the previous section has been used to explicate the specific practices deployed during a particular quantitative literacy event, in this case, the determination of a centroid of a composite object within applied mechanics
Implications and Conclusions The calculation of the centroid of an object is but one among many quantitative literacy practices deployed within science and engineering study
Summary
Barton and Hamilton (2000: 8) describe literacy practices as ‘the general cultural ways of utilizing written language which people draw upon in their lives. Thereafter, we discuss our view of teaching and learning as performance, before introducing a particular framework for understanding quantitative literacy, which is applied to a specific quantitative literacy event. The concern is with counting haemoglobin, which takes place through the use of advanced technologies and the preparation of laboratory test results We include this example to make the point that higher education often ties its participants to certain textual performances, limiting opportunities for ‘improvisational and creative performance [that] allows an opportunity for teachers [and, we would argue, students] to resist and play’ (Falter, 2016: 32). That is to say, according to the second competence identified in the NBT quantitative literacy framework, students are expected to identify and distinguish connections between
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