A Research on Mathematics Skills of Adults Attending First Stage Literacy Courses

Abstract

There are mainly two aims in this research. The first aim was to define mathematical skills of adults, who have participated into first stage of literacy programs. The second aim was to find out the relationships between their socio-demographic characteristics and defined mathematical skills. This is a descriptive research employing a mixture of research designs. The research was conducted in four cities (namely, Şanlıurfa, Ankara, Istanbul and Diyarbakır). Results show that more than 90% of those learners are not able to perform the four basic mathematical operations. Generally speaking, the younger learners are the better in mathematical skills. Also those who work and have an income have higher mathematical skills. Moreover the participants who have attended primary school are better at mathematics. Another distinguishing feature of successful adults is that they have more ties with urban life. It may also be stated that having literate adults around and using written communication more have impacts on their improving literacy and mathematical skills.