Techno-mathematical Literacies in the Workplace

hat are the combinations of mathematical, statistical and technologicalskills that people need in their work? The type of people we have inmind are those at “intermediate” level, typically non-graduates with A-levelqualifications or equivalent who may be working as skilled industrialoperators or supervisory managers. This question was central to theMathematical Skills in the Workplace project, previously reported in thisnewsletter 1, 2. That project concluded with the idea of “mathematicalliteracy” as a growing necessity for successful performance in the workplace.The Techno-mathematical Literacies in the Workplace project 3 wasestablished in October 2003 to investigate the nature of mathematicalliteracies in more detail, by a two-stage process. First, to survey themathematical work being done by intermediate-level employees in a sampleof companies. Second, to design and test “learning opportunities” foremployees that focus on those “Techno-mathematical Literacies” (TmL)which we find to be important from the initial survey. Ultimately, theintention is that our research findings will not fizzle away, as tends to happenwith fixed-term projects, but that the learning materials we produce cancontinue to be disseminated and developed in the post-16 education andtraining sector. One avenue for this that we are working on is to incorporateour ideas into NVQ frameworks for the several industry sectors that ourinvestigations focus on: Packaging, Pharmaceuticals, Manufacturing andFinancial Services.