Developing a Student Grouping Framework for Assessing Quantitative Literacy Development

Our broader study investigates how students’ quantitative literacy (QL)—the ability to use mathematical tools for reasoning and sense-making in physics—develops in transformed introductory physics sequences. We use the Physics Inventory of Quantitative Literacy (PIQL), a validated assessment, to measure QL changes over instruction. Rather than grouping students using descriptive statistics such as means or percentiles, we introduce a framework grounded in theoretically and empirically motivated benchmarks, including a random-guessing baseline and a reference pre-instruction average reported in prior studies. These benchmarks anchor group definitions in interpretable levels of performance, allowing shifts between groups to reflect meaningful changes in QL. This framework provides a more informative lens for evaluating the effectiveness of transformed courses in supporting students with varying levels of preparation.