A numeracia e a formação dos jornalistas

• Autor(a) principal: Pereira, Susana
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Azevedo, José, António Machiavelo
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/90830

There is a high incidence of mathematical errors on the newspapers articles of several countries, namely in Portugal. Actually, several authors point out that mathematics is misused in the news, although it is essential in such context. This problem, according to American authors, is also due to the low numeracy level of journalists, which follows as a result of the training they have. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to present the results of a study that investigates the numeracy of students attending a Communication Sciences course. First, the study assess if the numeracy levels of the students match the needs of a journalist, in terms of applicability of mathematical skills. Secondly it aims to evaluate if the mathematical training that students have during the course contributes to improve numeracy. The results indicate that the students numeracy levels are lower than what is necessary for journalistic work, and that the mathematics curricular component of the course appears not to contribute to the improvement of numeracy level.