Implementing Quantitative Literacy at Southwestern Community College, North Carolina

Abstract

There is a time when articulation agreements between universities and community colleges come to an end. When this happened in North Carolina, there was great hope that not only would the mathematics classes that were offered in the North Carolina Community College System be revamped with respect to overlapping content, but also that mathematics classes would be developed that have a clear connection between what is seen in the world and what is taught in the classroom especially for non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-related studies) students. This paper describes how Southwestern Community College (SCC) implemented a quantitative literacy class as it is now described in the newly adopted articulation agreement between the University of North Carolina (UNC) System and the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS), why such a class was chosen to be in that articulation agreement from the standpoint of SCC, and the success that was seen from such an endeavor. Results of preliminary statistical analysis suggest that students enrolled in the new Quantitative Literacy (MAT 143) course performed better on a quantitative reasoning assessment, on average, than their peers enrolled in similar traditional courses at SCC.

Keywords

• quantitative literacy
• North Carolina Community College System
• analysis of covariance