The QUIC: A Measure of Quantitative Reasoning

This page authored by Neil Lutsky, Carleton College.
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This material was originally developed as part of the Carleton College Teaching Activity Collection
through its collaboration with the SERC Pedagogic Service.

Summary

The QUIC, the Quantitative Understanding Instrument from Carleton, is a new 25-item test developed to measure quantitative reasoning about public and scientific claims. The attached represents the first major version of Form A of the QUIC (a Form B is also under development), and we invite suggestions for wording changes or additional topics to be covered. In addition, we request that users of the QUIC share their data with us to aid in further revisions of the instrument.


Learning Goals

The QUIC emphasizes the following:

* Understanding basic statistical, methodological, and other quantitative concepts.

* Knowledge of common important numbers.

* Accurate completion of simply mathematical procedures.

* Careful attention to problems involving quantitative and non-quantitative claims.

Context for Use

The QUIC was developed for use guiding and assessing college-level programs in quantitative reasoning.

Description and Teaching Materials

The attached represents version 1.0 of the QUIC, Form A. Completion of the QUIC requires 20-30 minutes of testing time. QUIC 1.0 (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 128kB Oct27 15)




Teaching Notes and Tips

In uses of the QUIC to date, we tell students that they may not have covered material in the past relevant to all items on the test and may have difficulty answering some items. Nonetheless, we encourage them to answer each question to the best of their ability. We also tell them that none of the questions requires complex calculations. We do not permit the use of electronic devices of any kind when answering questions on the QUIC.

Assessment

In progress.

References and Resources