In the public debate, the significance of mathematical competency is recognized from a number of different perspectives.
Thus, it is fair to assume that in all of these instances the measured notions of mathematical competency were equivalent.
Mathematical competency is central to life in modern society, and it is particularly important for many occupations and professions.
To respond correctly to the items, different facets of mathematical competency were clearly required, and the difficulty levels of the items varied within these facets.
Substantial improvements in mathematical competency were observed in the fields of electrical engineering, metalworking, business and administration, while improvements in the fields of public health and social work were significantly lower.
The test for measuring mathematical competencies was developed and piloted within the framework of this research project in cooperation with the department of mathematics education of the IPN Kielc – for information on this test see Hauck (2012) and Neumann et al. (2014).
H6: General cognitive abilities and mathematical competencies are predictive for the physical-technical prior knowledge.
While frameworks for mathematical competencies are clearly important for describing learning goals and measuring learning in schools, a one-sided emphasis on such frameworks may, given their inherent process orientation, tend to lead attention away from the body of knowledge aspect of mathematics.
Moreover, the divergence in learning opportunities across the various occupational branches does not appear to be related to the differential development of mathematical competency, nor was there any specific growth associated with gender or migrant status.
With the items fitting the model, the highest (model-based) variance of mathematical competency parameters was determined, and thus, the objective of measuring individual differences was achieved.
