In the end, 29 people signed up to take part in the project, from 18 to 50 years old. Their skills in math ranged from being unable to do an addition problem involving carrying to having passed advanced university math classes; the majority were at the lower end of the range. They were mainly parents or grandparents, with a few who said they would try the activities with a niece or nephew or younger sibling.
An analysis of participants’ early experiences with math shows that my impression of their love of math was correct. Table 2, page 20, shows that 25 of the 29 participants (Types A, B, C, and D) reported positive memories of school math, either in the K–12 system or in adult programs. Of the remaining four participants, two (Type E) had been successful at finding solutions to their difficulties with math, and had passed high school and college math classes, although they continued to find it challenging and frustrating. The end results were satisfying, even if the road to success was rocky. Very few people who disliked math signed up for the family math groups; in fact, only 2 of 29 participants (Type F) reported an early dislike of math with no success at math at school or in an adult upgrading program.
I was most interested in recruiting parents who had not been successful in school math, however much they may have liked or disliked it. Such parents indeed were the most numerous, 18 in total, and fell into three types, A, B and F. These three types had the lowest average score on the pre-test. I was also interested in working with parents who may have been successful at math, but who didn’t like it much, Type E. The seven participants who were Type C or type D, who had good early experience with math, and who had done well academically, provided a nice balance to the groups and interesting dynamics as we went along.
Participants signed up for group family math sessions at one of three places, the Reading and Writing Centre, the main Cowichan Campus or the Growing Together Child and Parent Society.
Participants at this group were students at the Reading and Writing Centre, the basic literacy program of the Cowichan campus, which is located in a storefront in downtown Duncan. Math skills were generally low; people who are placed at this level may have difficulty with counting and reading numbers and basic whole number operations; certainly when they start at the Centre they are usually unable to understand and solve problems involving fractions, decimals and percents. Most also have difficulty with reading, and would be at levels 1 and 2 of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) measures.