Examples of Quantitative Reasoning

• Activity Number: 189
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 5, 2013 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Kimberly Massaro*+
• Companies: UTSA
• Keywords: Quantitative Literacy ; QR Examples ; QR Writing Examples ; Core Curriculum ; Anthropology ; Biology

Abstract

Quantitative Reasoning (QR) skills play an important role in enhancing a student's ability to analyze and communicate results of a quantitative analysis in real-world settings. The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has developed the Quantitative Literacy Program (QLP) to integrate quantitative reasoning skills across various disciplines in the general education curriculum. UTSA's QLP has a team of specialists that assist faculty during the course redesign process to integrate data intensive real world problems into their current course. Even the courses that are naturally quantitative intensive, but tend to focus mostly on data analysis and not on communicating the results of the data, require careful redesign to incorporate quantitative literacy. Incorporating QR poses a significant challenge for courses that aren't naturally data intensive. These courses may show a visual representation of data, but never actually explore, analyze, or write about data. This paper describes an example of integrating QR skills in two courses-one is an inherently quantitative intensive course and the other a not inherently quantitative-intensive course-over a two-year period.