Many authors argue that a discussion of functional skills should also address supporting or enabling attitudes and beliefs. In the area of adults' mathematical skills, “at homeness” with numbers or “confidence” with mathematical skills is expected, as these affect how skills and knowledge are actually put into practice (Cockroft, 1982; Tobias, 1993).
The brief definition of numeracy developed for ALL and presented earlier above is complemented by a broader definition of numerate behaviour which was developed by the ALL Numeracy Team to serve as the basis for the development of numeracy items for ALL:
Numerate behaviour is observed when people manage a situation or solve a problem in a real context; it involves responding to information about mathematical ideas that may be represented in a range of ways; it requires the activation of a range of enabling knowledge, factors and processes.
This conception of numerate behaviour implies that in order to assess people's numeracy, it is necessary to generate tasks and items which vary in terms of contexts, the responses called for, the nature of the mathematical information involved, and the representations of this information. These task characteristics are elaborated below. This conception is much broader than the definition of quantitative literacy used in IALS. Its key elements relate in a broad way to situation management and to a need for a range of responses (not only to responses that involve numbers). It refers to a wide range of skills and knowledge (not only to application of arithmetical knowledge and computational operations) and to the use of a wide range of situations that present respondents with mathematical information of different types (not only those involving numbers embedded in printed materials).
The item development process aimed to ensure that a certain proportion of the item pool would place a minimum reading burden on the respondents, i.e., that some of the stimuli would be text-free or almost so, allowing even respondents with limited mastery of the language of the test to comprehend the situation described. Other parts of the item pool included items requiring varying amounts of essential texts as dictated by the situation which the item aimed to represent.
As implied by the literature and ideas reviewed earlier, the nature of a person's responses to the mathematical and other demands of a situation will depend critically on the activation of various enabling knowledge bases (understanding of the context; knowledge and skills in the areas of mathematics, statistics and literacy), on reasoning processes and on their attitudes and beliefs with respect to numeracy. In addition, numerate behaviour requires the integration of mathematical knowledge and skills with broader literacy and problem solving skills along with the prior experiences and practices that each person brings to every situation. It is clear that numerate behaviour will involve an attempt to engage with a task and not delegate it to others or deal with it by intentionally ignoring its mathematical content.
Four key characteristics of numerate behaviour were used to develop and represent the numeracy tasks built for ALL — type of purpose/context, type of response, type of mathematical or statistical information, and type of representation of mathematical or statistical information. Each of these is described next.