Numeracy Journal Steen Award: Past Recipients

The Board of the National Numeracy Network (NNN) is pleased to announce the 2023 Steen Award winner:
This year’s award, < We need the information from the board.>

The Board of the National Numeracy Network (NNN) is pleased to announce the 2022 Steen Award winner:
This year’s award, < We need the information from the board.>

The Board of the National Numeracy Network (NNN) is pleased to announce the 2021 Steen Award winner:
This award, selected from articles published in Numeracy during 2021, goes to Michael Lewis (Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, City University of New York) for the article "COVID-19 and Quantitative Literacy: Focusing on Probability." The selection committee felt this article was an excellent application of quantitative literacy to real life and also well suited for teaching. The article makes quantitative literacy approachable to a wider readership, and helps bring quantitative literacy into the public decision-making realm. Congratulations, Michael! Also, many thanks to the selection committee!

The Board of the National Numeracy Network (NNN) is pleased to announce the 2020 Steen Award winner:
This year’s award, selected from articles in Volume 13, published during 2020, goes to Robert Root and Sonia Bhala for the article "Effects of Quantitative Literacy on Healthcare Decision-making: An Aural Context" from Vol. 13, Issue 1, Article 3, January 2020. This article impressed the committee in addressing an area that has huge societal import and one where a lack of numeracy can have profound impacts. The authors describe work on a new survey instrument intended to couple aural health literacy with health numeracy. The subcommittee appreciated the thorough, evidence-based approach taken in developing and testing this new instrument, and noted that, even if not explicitly addressing COVID, the article is timely in a period where healthcare issues are in the forefront of policy discussions.

As usual, the subcommittee felt there were a number of high quality articles to choose from and wanted to make special mention of Jessica Ancker’s article, “The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Power of Numbers” as both timely as well as covering a wide range of numeracy topics in a clear and compelling manner.

The Board of the National Numeracy Network (NNN) is pleased to announce the 2019 Steen Award winner. The 2019 Steen award goes to Rebecca L. Matz (University of Michigan) and Samuel L. Tunstall (Trinity University) for their article "Embedded Remediation Is Not Necessarily a Pathway for Equitable Access to Quantitative Literacy and College Algebra: Results from a Pilot Study." This article impressed the committee with its analysis of the impact of moving students directly into college-level math courses rather than remedial courses. In this study, students tended to be more successful when they received point of need instruction in a “regular” college course rather than a full remedial course. Remedial courses are stigmatized, lengthen time to degree, and create additional cost for students least likely to be able to afford it. Moreover, the article shows that such remediation is not necessarily effective. The committee also found the article particularly timely given current conversations around both California's new mathematics framework and social justice in college admissions.

Congratulations to the Award Winners, Dr. Rebecca L. Matz and Dr. Samuel L. Tunstall!

2019 Steen Award Committee: Carol Ann Borchert, Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein, Donna LaLonde.

The Board of the National Numeracy Network (NNN) is pleased to announce the 2017 Steen Award winner:
This year’s award goes to Louise Yarnall and Michael Andrew Ranney for their article, "Fostering Scientific and Numerate Practices in Journalism to Support Rapid Public Learning" from Vol. 10, Issue 1. January 2017. While there were a number of high quality articles to choose from in Volume 10, Yarnall and Ranney’s article stood out for its clarity and timeliness in addressing the need to foster numeracy among journalists, an issue that will have a significant impact on the global community in the current era of "fake news." It is an article that should be accessible and of interest to a wide audience.

The Award Subcommittee’s report and recommendation to the Board is as follows:
The Board of the National Numeracy Network (NNN) is pleased to announce the winner of the 2016 Steen Award. This award recognizes one of the most impactful articles from the ninth volume of the NNN journal, Numeracy as judged by the Awards Subcommittee of the NNN.

The 2016 Steen Award goes to Anne A. Taylor and Lucie M. Byrne-Davis for their article "Clinician Numeracy: The Development of an Assessment Measure for Doctors" from Volume 9, Issue 2 of Numeracy.

The Award Subcommittee’s report and recommendation to the Board is as follows:
The Board of the National Numeracy Network (NNN) is pleased to announce the winner of the 2015 Steen Award. This award recognizes one of the most impactful articles from the eighth volume of the NNN journal, Numeracy as judged by the Awards Subcommittee of the NNN.

This year’s award goes to Katherine B. Follette, Donald W. McCarthy, Erin Dokter, Sanlyn Buxner, and Edward Prather for their article "The Quantitative Reasoning for College Science (QuaRCS) Assessment, 1: Development and Validation" from Volume 8, Issue 2 of Numeracy.

The committee found this article to be clearly articulated, thorough in reviewing the relevant literature, timely in its focus on assessment, and interdisciplinary in dealing with QR in a variety of general education science courses. Likewise, the five co-authors form an interdisciplinary group as well. Furthermore, the QuaRCS assessment tool has been extensively tested, and has the capacity to be useful in a variety of contexts to help promote students' quantitative literacy skills. This article should be accessible and of interest to a wide audience, especially those in the sciences.

The Award Subcommittee’s report and recommendation to the Board is as follows:
The Board of the National Numeracy Network (NNN) is pleased to announce the winner of the 2014 Steen Award. This award recognizes one of the most impactful articles from the seventh volume of the NNN journal, Numeracy as judged by the Awards Subcommittee of the NNN.

This year’s award goes to Bernard L. Madison from the University of Arkansas for his article "How Does One Design or Evaluate a Course in Quantitative Reasoning?" This article operationalizes all of the criteria for this award. The committee was particularly impressed with the accessibility, organization, and clarity of writing. The author also recommends a wide range of benchmarks for evaluating such a course, creating a holistic approach for assessment. The committee believes the article will provide excellent guidance for faculty in a variety of settings contemplating the implementation of a QR course or evaluation of an existing course. Finally, the committee recognizes Professor Madison’s long term and informed commitment to the QR movement, his fairness and pragmatism in realistically portraying the current challenges to QR education, the lack of consensus regarding QR definition and evaluation, and his optimism in providing solutions.

The NNN describes the purpose of its journal as follows: “Numeracy seeks evidence-based articles on teaching strategies and resources, education research, curriculum design, assessment strategies, and faculty development, as well as perspectives, reviews of educational resources, and commentaries/replies.” Readers of Professor Madison’s article will quickly see that it is a great exemplar of how to fulfill this purpose.

The Award Subcommittee’s report and recommendation to the Board is as follows:
The Board of the National Numeracy Network (NNN) is pleased to announce the winner of the 2013 Steen Award. This award recognizes one of the most impactful articles from the sixth volume of the NNN journal, Numeracy as judged by the Awards Subcommittee of the NNN.

This award goes to Robert L. Mayes of Georgia Southern University, Franziska Peterson of University of Wyoming, and Rachel Bonilla also from Georgia Southern University for their article "Quantitative Reasoning Learning Progressions for Environmental Science: Developing a Framework." The article excels in all four criteria for the award. It is quite accessible to a broad audience and demonstrates a command of a fairly large literature base. This control of the literature serves as an excellent resource for others, particularly through the provision of useful summary tables with comparative definitions of QR. It exemplifies a nice balance of theory and practice with a dual focus on pedagogy and assessment that spans educational levels. The authors demonstrated how to take an important conceptualization problem and model it to completion. While the article is dedicated to learning progressions in environmental science, the Awards Subcommittee contends this work easily generalizes to other areas.