This is the seventh part of a podcast series developed by the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES), part of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), to provide information about a research project that will help to update the numeracy element of the Essential Skills framework.

In this podcast, OLES policy analyst Katherine Clarke-Nolan explains that the numeracy framework will be revised into two domains: a declarative mathematical knowledge domain, which is the content; and a procedural mathematical knowledge domain, which refers, for instance, to responses and actions performed or required.

In addition to these two domains, there are four other components that could be included in the revised framework. The first component of these is the context, with the proposed framework emphasizing that numeracy exists within contexts, including everyday life and social settings.

Other components include cognitive enabling processes, like broader reasoning skills as well as more general literacy skills; non-cognitive enabling processes, like prior experience with mathematics; and meta-cognitive processes, like the ability of individuals to be aware of their thought processes and progress as they solve numeracy-related tasks.

These four components are not conceptualized here as separate domains, but rather as enabling processes and factors for the broader domains of declarative and procedural mathematical knowledge.

 

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