Basic and Applied Social Psychology
Volume 38, Issue 4, 2016, Pages 185-199

Numeracy, Health Numeracy, and Older Immigrants’ Primary Language: An Observation-Oriented Exploration (Article)

Gatobu S.K. , Arocha J.F.* , Hoffman-Goetz L.
  • a University of Waterloo, Canada
  • b University of Waterloo, Canada
  • c University of Waterloo, Canada

Abstract

Health information is often provided in number formats not equally present in all languages. We explored the relation between immigrants’ primary language and comprehension of context-free and health numeric information presented in English. The study compared speakers of Kikuyu (Kenya) and Mandarin (China), two languages that differ in the quantity of numeric concepts in their structures. Observation-oriented analysis was performed to determine how accurately the observed data conform to language group. We show how such analysis compares to standard statistical analysis. We argue that primary language contributes to some of the differences in numeracy and health numeracy. © 2016, Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Author Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Index Keywords

statistical analysis controlled study China comprehension mandarin Kenya language human human experiment
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84976431434&doi=10.1080%2f01973533.2016.1197129&partnerID=40&md5=95a3880de3e75cfc3dc12edd8ceb9132
DOI: 10.1080/01973533.2016.1197129
ISSN: 01973533
Cited by: 1
Original Language: English