An Investigation of the Importance and Usefulness of School Mathematics in the Workplace

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Sunday 11:45 am
  In Poster Session: SIG-RME Poster Session: Explorations of the Mathematics Teaching and Learning Experience

Abstract

Students often find math disconnected from the world, and many wonder when they are going to use these concepts. Research and theories in education suggest there are important disconnects between school and workplace mathematics. The present study explores this question using the extensive O*NET data, collected by the U.S. Department of Labor, consisting of survey results or professional workers collected over the last 20 years. We conduct descriptive analysis on several workplace math-related survey items collected across many professions, regarding workers’ ratings of the importance and level of usage of mathematics and compare their distributions with one another. We also inspect the O*NET categorization of “Job Zones” and how they relate to the distributions of mathematics usage.

Authors

• Jonathan Isaac, Southern Methodist University

• Candace A. Walkington, Southern Methodist University