Maths in the Workplace

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Maths in the Workplace

• Dr Diana Coben
• Maths4Life

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Research Review ofBasic Skills in the Workplace
(LSDA)

• Calls for more research on the effectiveness of
  workplace basic skills programmes
• Identifies factors that determine effectiveness
• Marketing programmes to fit in with workers
  interests, and using positive titles such as
  communication skills
• Basing approach on workers own communication
  needs
• Including basic skills as part of an
  organisations overall training and development
  programme, with support from management. (Payne
  2003)

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The benefits to employers of raising workforce
basic skills a literature review (NRDC)

• Individuals benefit significantly from improving
  their levels of literacy and numeracy.
• Very little evidence on the benefits to employers
  of investing in basic skills training, but some
  studies indicate increases in productivity,
  reductions in costs and enhanced customer
  satisfaction.
• Much larger body of research on the benefits of
  workforce training in general suggests that it
  improves firms performance and is associated
  with lower staff turnover and higher levels of
  commitment to the organisation.
• Dearth of studies on the effects of basic skills
  training in the workplace and, therefore, an
  urgent need for more research in this area.
  (Ananiadou et al, 2003)

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Some recent research

• Mathematical Skills in the Workplace (STM)
• Identifying effective workplace basic skills
  strategies for enhancing employee productivity
  and development (NRDC)
• Chemical spraying (Australia)
• Maths4Life Pathfinder (NHSU)

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Mathematical Skills in the Workplace

• Project for the Science Technology Mathematics
  Council (SMT, now part of SEMTA)
• Research into current requirements for
  mathematical skills in the workplace in 7
  sectors
• Electronic Engineering and Optoelectronics
• Financial Services
• Food Processing
• Healthcare
• Packaging
• Pharmaceuticals
• Tourism

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Mathematical Skills in the Workplace concludes
that

• Mathematics provision for young people needs to
  be rethought and upgraded and people need to have
  access to additional provision over their
  lifetimes.
• Mathematical literacy is of central importance
  and it represents a major skills gap in the
  workforce.
• Mathematical literacy is described in terms of
  its component skills, its links with the changing
  context of business and its strong
  inter-relationship with IT, and is illustrated by
  reference to examples from case studies from the
  different sectors studied.

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Recommendations of the STM project

1. Raise visibility and awareness of the importance
   of mathematical literacy in the workplace.
2. Generate models for training/professional
   development to promote mathematical literacy.
3. Identify/further define core concepts which
   provide the basis of mathematical literacy - has
   implications for pre-employment education and
   training.
4. Communications with employers should recognise
   that they need to understand the mathematical
   literacy they can expect from national
   qualifications. (Hoyles et al, 2002)

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Identifying effective workplace basic skills
strategies for enhancing employee productivity
and development (NRDC)

• Aim to examine the effectiveness of
  workplace-linked literacy, language and numeracy
  programmes.
• Pilot study of employees participating in WPBS
  programmes.
• Findings
• Fairly low attendance and retention rates
• These seem to be related to the general learning
  culture in the organisation, as well as more
  practical matters, e.g., working patterns of
  employees
• Employees participating in WPBS consider them
  beneficial and enjoyable. They tend to express
  very positive attitudes towards their tutors or
  trainers - this can be linked to evidence on
  employers' positive attitudes towards basic
  skills training
• Absence of pre-existing research instruments
  suitable for use in studies of workplace
  programmes (a major focus of the pilot was the
  development and modification of instruments).
  (Ananiadou et al 2004)

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Learning Numeracy on the Job A case study of
chemical handling and spraying

• Illustrates challenges faced by industries using
  chemical handling and spraying as they attempt to
  ensure that workers have the appropriate numeracy
  skills
• The numeracy task of preparing and applying
  chemicals requires that the person responsible
  takes a complex set of variables into account.
  Although workers may have undergone specific
  training and/or learned the required mathematical
  skills at school, they still require further
  on-the-job mentoring and support.
• The worksite influences both the type of numeracy
  skills needed, as well as how they are deployed.
  In other words, the task, the history of the task
  (for example, how previous records were taken),
  and the equipment used, determine the sorts of
  calculations people must be able to make. Once
  these are learned, they have to be embedded
  through practice.
• Workplace numeracy education cannot be approached
  from a traditional school mathematics
  mentality.
• Workplace numeracy requires training that
  reflects workplace practices and incorporates
  authentic problem-solving in real or simulated
  tasks in small groups with shared
  responsibilities. It also needs to incorporate
  the development of metacognitive skills, such as
  critical thinking, learning to learn, planning
  and problem-solving. (FitzSimons et al 2005)

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Maths4Life Pathfinder Decisions that count in
health and social care a problem-solving
approach to making good mathematics/numeracy-relat
ed decisions

• Action research project, led by NHSU, with NIACE
  and University of Nottingham. Researchers from
  Maths4Life and NIACE worked with a nurses
  learning set established by Oxfordshire Skills
  for Health.
• Aims
• to support the development of effective
  strategies to support staff to make
  mathematics-related decisions at work in selected
  health/social care sites
• to develop a model which will inform
  decision-making strategies outside the selected
  sites

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The pathfinder project yielded rich data on

• How the nurses viewed the mathematics/numeracy
  they use at work
• How they made mathematics/numeracy decisions
• How they viewed the learning support they receive
  on mathematics/ numeracy issues
• How their mathematics/numeracy skills and
  practices affected patients
• Small-scale project all these issues warrant
  further study on a wider scale
• Found that nurses often calculate and measure
  under pressure
• The working environment is often noisy (in
  various senses)
• Their mathematical results may have a bearing on
  patient care and patient safety
• The nurses working environment encouraged them
  to seek help if they were uncertain, but we have
  no evidence about how strong this culture is
  elsewhere in the NHS. (Maths4Life internal
  report)

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To sum up evidence from these and other studies
suggests

• Dearth of well-founded research in this area.
• Employers, employees, providers/tutors, policy
  makers keen to know what works.
• Complex connection between the numeracy/mathematic
  s learned in the classroom and that used
  elsewhere (Lave, 1988).
• Transfer or translation of skill and knowledge
  between contexts is difficult (Evans 2000).
• Maths skills used in the workplace and the
  classroom may be different, despite apparent
  similarities (Nunes et al., 1993, Hoyles et al.,
  2001).
• Links between numeracy/maths skills and other
  skills and practices may be critical (Wedege,
  2000 Coben et al 2003).
• Workers need to combine mathematical skills with
  communication skills the impact of extensive
  team-working (Hoyles et al, 2002).
• Effective strategies acknowledge the demands of
  the specific context in which mathematical skills
  are being used, as well as any existing
  strategies, knowledges or conceptions among the
  staff involved. (FitzSimons et al., 2003 Hoyles
  et al., 2001).

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References

• Ananiadou, K., Emslie-Henry, R., Evans, K.,
  Wolf, A. (2004). Identifying Effective Workplace
  Basic Skills Strategies for Enhancing Employee
  Productivity and Development. London National
  Research and Development Centre for Adult
  Literacy and Numeracy.
• Ananiadou, K., Jenkins, A., Wolf, A. (2003) The
  Benefits to Employers of Raising Workforce Basic
  Skills A Literature Review. London NRDC
• Coben, D., Colwell, D., Macrae, S., Boaler, J.,
  Brown, M., Rhodes, V. (2003). Adult Numeracy
  Review of research and related literature.
  London National Research and Development Centre
  for Adult Literacy and Numeracy (NRDC).
• Evans, J. (2000). The transfer of mathematics
  learning from school to work, not straightforward
  but not impossible either. In A. Bessot J.
  Ridgway (Eds.), Education for Mathematics in the
  Workplace. Dordrecht, NL Kluwer Academic
  Publishers.
• Evans, K., Hodkinson, P. Unwin, L. (Eds)
  (2002). Working to Learn Transforming Learning
  in the Workplace. London Kogan Page
• FitzSimons, G. E., Coben, D., O'Donoghue, J.
  (2003). Lifelong mathematics education. In A. J.
  Bishop, M. A. Clements, C. Keitel, J. Kilpatrick
  F. K. S. Leung (Eds.), International Handbook
  of Mathematics Education (pp. 105-144).
  Dordrecht, NL Kluwer Academic Publishers
• FitzSimons, G. E., Micek, S., Hull, O., Wright,
  C. (2005). Learning Numeracy on the Job A case
  study of chemical handling and spraying.
  Adelaide NCVER
• Hoyles, C., Noss, R., Pozzi, S. (2001).
  Proportional reasoning in nursing practice.
  Journal for Research in Mathematics Education,
  32(1), 4-27.
• Hoyles, C., Wolf, A., Molyneux-Hodgson, S.
  Kent, P. (2002). Mathematical Skills in the
  Workplace. Final report to the Science,
  Technology and Mathematics Council. London
  Institute of Education
• Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in Practice Mind,
  mathematics and culture in everyday life.
  Cambridge Cambridge University Press.
• Payne, J. (2003). Basic Skills in the Workplace -
  A Research Review. London Learning and Skills
  Development Agency (LSDA)
• Wedege, T. (2000). Technology, competences and
  mathematics. In D. Coben, J. ODonoghue G. E.
  FitzSimons (Eds.), Perspectives on Adults
  Learning Mathematics Research and Practice (pp.
  191-207). Dordrecht, The Netherlands Kluwer
  Academic Publishers.