The Quantitative Reasoning for College Science study is an Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved study designed to investigate whether and to what extent quantitative skills and attitudes toward mathematics can be improved through a semester of introductory undergraduate science instruction. The final version of the instrument, as developed over the course of eight semesters of implementation in college classrooms, can be found here.

The QuaRCS seeks to measure student skills in the following ten areas of quantitative reasoning: graph reading, table reading, arithmetic, proportional reasoning, estimation, percentages, statistics/probability, area/volume, error, and unit conversions/dimensional analysis. It also probes students’ attitudes toward mathematics and the role of quantitative information in science. The assessment includes a short series of demographic and academic background questions. Details about the development and validation of the QuaRCS can be found in the following article:

Follette, Katherine B.; McCarthy, Donald W.; Dokter, Erin; Buxner, Sanlyn; and Prather, Edward (2015) “The Quantitative Reasoning for College Science (QuaRCS) Assessment, 1: Development and Validation,” Numeracy: Vol. 8: Iss. 2, Article 2.
available at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/numeracy/vol8/iss2/art2

Whether or not you currently emphasize quantitative skills in your classroom, if you are an instructor of an intro science course for non-majors, we would love to have you and your class participate! We are still recruiting instructors for the 2015-16 academic year.

The QuaRCS is non-proprietary, however we strongly encourage your participation in our national study should you choose to administer it in your course(s). Instructors taking part in the national study will receive:

  1. Access to our online assessment interface. We will administer the instrument for you. You simply assign the link.
  2. Customized participant lists and score/attitude reports after each assessment. We will do all of the grading for you and conglomerate the results into a report.
  3. Reports on improvements in student attitudes and skills from pre to post semester. We can help you quantify whether you course is helping improve your students’ quantitative skills and attitudes toward mathematics.

In return, we ask simply that you:

  1. Connect us with the Human Subjects coordinators at your school so that we can obtain site authorization.
  2. Assign your students the online survey instrument during the first few weeks of the semester, either for participation credit or for extra credit.
  3. Assign the survey again during the last month of the semester.
  4. Complete the end of semester instructor survey. Funding allowing, we offer a small gift card incentive.

We are also always happy to provide support, assistance and our own curricular materials for use in emphasizing quantitative literacy in your classroom.