Investigating Alignment in a Quantitative Literacy Course for Social Sciences Students

Abstract

The Numeracy Centre at the University of Cape Town has taught a one-semester quantitative literacy course for social sciences students since 1999. This study aims to provide an example for how the design of such a course can be assessed for alignment with quantitative reasoning goals. We propose a framework of learning outcomes for the course and use that framework to analyse the assessments and student performance on them. We find that just under half of the overall mark for the course was devoted to the interpretation and communication of quantitative information (our “main” outcomes), and about a quarter was devoted to the performing of calculations. The analysis revealed that statistics outcomes were under-represented in the make-up of the overall course mark, and assessment of these outcomes was restricted almost entirely to the two final examinations. The results of the analysis of the alignment between outcomes and assessment are useful to inform discussions about changes to the course curriculum. The analysis of student performance on the different outcomes provides insights which are useful for informing improvements to our teaching approach. The analysis demonstrates a relatively straightforward procedure that can be used or adapted by researchers in other institutions for ongoing monitoring of alignment between course outcomes, teaching, and assessment.