Evaluating Number Sense in Workforce Students

Earlier institution-sponsored research revealed that about 20% of students in community college basic math and pre-algebra programs lacked a sense of part-whole relationships with whole numbers. Using the same tool with a group of 86 workforce students, about 75% placed five whole numbers on an empty number line in a way that indicated lack of part-whole thinking. This concept, needed to understand fraction and percent relationships, carries over as a grasp of the relationship between details and the main idea in factual prose, in critical thinking in job situations, and on the current high school equivalency tests.