I’m reading a book on neuroscience by a highly regarded expert on intelligence. It makes the surprising claim about functional literacy that just has to be incorrect. The author himself claims he was surprised by the data, citing research from the (US) National Adult Literacy Survey. He wrote “The Great Course” on the subject.
The survey divided literacy into five levels based on skills one could perform. The highest level could compare tables on two credit cards to determine the best choice and use a calculator to determine the cost of carpeting a specific room. The next highest level could determine social security and employment benefits from tables and explain different categories. Intermediately literate could write a letter explaining an error on a credit card bill or calculate miles per gallon for a vehicle given distances and data. Lower literates can determine the difference in price of two items and find intersections on a map. The lowest level can locate expiration dates on ID and understand bank deposit entries.
The part I don’t buy is the claim only 4% of adults could calculate the cost of carpeting a room. (The five levels of literacy are said to encompass 4%, 21%, 36%, 25% and 14% of the population studied.)
60% of Canadians study at university or college. I would have thought most could measure a room, calculate the area, multiply this by the cost of carpeting per square whatever. Only 4%? That can’t possibly be true! It’s like those chintzy social media puzzles that make people feel smart because they believe some claim that only a few people could do it.
I think this is a different sort of literacy than I was expecting. In fact, it seems much more like what I have seen called “numeracy.”
Which is beside the point, of course. Personally, I have a very low opinion of peoples’ ability to work with numbers and even more of numeric concepts, so I wouldn’t be surprised that only 4% have a high skill in that area. I don’t think much of his standards for the highest level though. I think (not having tried either one lately) that the second-highest level sounds harder than the highest, but they both seem fairly related. The middle level actually has a language component, if they have to explain an error in a credit card statement, so that seems a different kind of test.
Perhaps one needs to read the book. I still object to the term “functional literacy” being used in this way.
I think I’m well read. Can spell. Can understand what I read and retain lots of it. My grammar lacks. My southern dialect probably hampers me, in writing.
I’m abysmal at math. I have a good calculator. I think it could do way more than I can understand. It can calculate square footage and any other thing like that I may need.
I haven’t found a device that will read a book and make a person understand or retain. Is the book truly read if it’s being read to you? ( I don’t mean children, different thing) I’ve listened to many books. I missed half of what was being read by my brain veering off into passing thoughts or the shopping list.
Literacy is so important. It’s one of things that separate us from the beasts.
If the task was to make a reasonable guess at how much carpeting would cost for a room when all I could do is touch and see the carpet and room, without measuring the room or knowing the price of the carpet, well, 4% would seem to me to be a really high number if only because I’m awful at eyeballing distances and have absolutely no idea what carpet costs. I might imagine that 4% of people bought carpet recently enough that they have reasonably good ideas for those things in their head.
But 4% of people can’t do the calculation when given all the necessary values? Are they counting dead people, people under 7 years old, people who can’t read the language of the question, or what?
This is slightly more believable because it requires a unit conversion factor that requires a bit more knowledge about how units convert than most people remember.
Is this by any chance the work of Stanislas Dehaene? He’s a respected French neuroscientist who is best known for his work on numerical cognition. If so, I’d guess he’s probably using the word “literacy” in a broad and unconventional sense encompassing literacy, numeracy, education, and general intelligence. And I do agree with you about the “4%” conclusion being extremely implausible, going only by your own interpretation.
No, Richard Haier. I agree this is an elastic definition of literacy, but the numbers don’t make sense to me. Surely over 4% of adults have actually bought carpet before, or passed moderately hard math classes.
I have: reading that book over again ten more times. Take notes if necessary. If it’s a textbook then work through some of the exercises.
There you go; no one in France knows wtf a yard (or rood, perch, stremma, etc) is, and honestly I am inclined to give US adults a pass on that as well.
throw in the fact that carpet seems to come in standard-width … and buying “standard width m2” does not necesarily translate to “installed m2”, e.g. in a scenario where the carpet(roll) is 3m wide, but the room is 2.7m wide … 5meters of 30cm strip might fit mathematically in a different spot, practically you’d often find it wont.
so, IOW, if it is a “trick question” (as in “how much m2 of roll do you have to buy to install it in this given room”?) then I can believe the 4% … if not, it does peg my BS meter a bit
(and hey, feels good to be a 4 percenter once in a while )
I’m reading this “only 4% can perform both tasks correctly.”
Is it possible that more than 4% got the carpet problem right but missed the credit card problem? (I’m not sure what information is in these credit card tables,)
Without knowing the details of the problem or how correct is correct enough it’s kinda hard to say.
You’d need to measure or be given the dimensions of the room, convert that to square units, perform a units conversion to the units the carpeting is sold in, allow for any excess or short width, and convert the resulting goods run length to money. Depending on how smartly the problem was written, folks actually in the flooring biz would get it wrong because they’d include factors (like roll width vs room width) that the amateur test-writer didn’t know to include. Double fun if this is in Canada where metric and customary units semi-coexist.
Most folks who don’t work with numbers daily look at a problem like that the same way I look at hoeing out a stable: take one glance, say “no thank you”, and move on without even trying. They’d sooner run a mile than multiply two 2-digit numbers.
If the image in @Palooka’s link is in fact the question used in the survey, its text reads:
Suppose you want to carpet your living room which is 9 feet by 12 feet, and you purchase DuPont Stainmaster carpet at the sale price. [$9.49 as shown in the ad below the question.] Using the calculator, compute the total cost, excluding tax and labor, of exactly enough carpet to cover your living room floor.
[Emphasis mine]
So that would exclude the real-world considerations you are suggesting. Which means the “trick” of the question is noticing that you have to convert 9x12 feet to yards, knowing how to do that, and multiplying that number by the price.
Literacy is primarily defined as the ability to read and write – mastery of written language. A later broader definition includes numeracy, but that never has displaced the most common understanding, mastery of written language. Which is exactly what Literacy Dude seems to have done. His definition is almost entirely numeracy.
I’m close to being entirely innumerate, yet with a calculator and measuring tape I can with a bit of struggle calculate the square footage of a room and price per square yard of carpeting. Because I work with fabric I am accustomed to thinking about square footage. And figuring out mpg is considerably simpler. I am distrustful of these gradations. If I am that numerate, the rest of the population must be morons.
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