Lack of mathematical know-how hampers workplace efficiency

17 April 2009

The efficiency of British companies is being compromised by outdated mathematical skills, the government's former maths tsar has warned.

Even though computers now perform many operations previously carried out manually, workers still need to be able to interpret the numbers, tables and graphs produced by their machines. This requires a knowledge of mathematics that goes beyond the calculations taught in schools, Professor Celia Hoyles will tell the American Educational Research Association conference in San Diego today (Friday April 17).

"People no longer need to do algebra or trigonometry – the computer does it for them," explains Hoyles, from the Institute of Education, "but they do need to understand how the results have been arrived at so that they can work out what they mean.

"Training that merely re-teaches school mathematics will not close the skills gap."

This problem is being tackled by a research team from the Institute of Education, London, which has developed instructional materials to help staff understand the maths their computers do – "techno-maths" – in order to correctly decipher what they see on their screens.

The project team, led by Professor Hoyles and Professor Richard Noss, spent three years studying companies working in manufacturing and financial services industries to discover the techno-maths that staff needed to do their jobs well. They found that employees' greatest weakness with regard to maths was in their understanding of how computers reach their conclusions.

"Calculation and basic arithmetic are less important now than being able to grasp what graphs and spreadsheets reveal so that workers can use this knowledge to control and improve procedures," says Noss. "Yet many managers complain about employees' poor numerical skills, even though computers have rendered them largely irrelevant, and car manufacturing is an example of where this is so."

Several car factories studied by the team employed "process control" techniques that used statistical or algebraic formulas that staff did not understand. As a result, they were unable to use this information to control operations, troubleshoot or correct jobs that were going wrong. The researchers developed software that used graphics to show what was happening. Employees were then able to manipulate aspects of the process because the computer gave them visual feedback.

A manager commented: "With numbers they don't understand what's going on. The graphical representation shows them and now they understand what needs to be done."

The project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of its Teaching and Learning Research Programme, the biggest-ever investment in education research in the UK.

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