Media Credit: Christin Palazzolo [Click to enlarge]

It is a question that nearly everyone asked during a math class growing up: When am I ever going to use this?

Researcher Ellen Peters may have the answer, thanks to recent research, including several studies conducted with University students.

Peters' research at the Decision Research institute in Eugene found that people with a high level of numeracy are more likely to make better decisions that can help them in more crucial areas of their lives than they might think.

Aside from the given areas of finances and money, people with a better grasp of numbers are also able to make better decisions about medicine that could save their lives, the research found. One crucial factor, Peters said, lies in how those figures are organized.

"How you present information can help or hurt people in terms of understanding the numbers, but it can also influence their choices," she said.

As part of her research, Peters offered subjects two different presentations of the same data that showed the likelihood of cancer survival after 10 years given various treatments. One set presented four divided graphs with percentages of how many people survive out of 100 with different kinds of treatment. The other simplified the information by simply giving the total number of people that were still alive in the same time period. Peters said the latter simplified an issue that can be very difficult to begin with.

"Cancer tends to be a very emotional disease," Peters said. "When people hear the word 'cancer,' it's very emotional for them ... they're not able to focus on the numbers as well."

While people with higher numeracy still understood the first format better, the second, simpler format leveled the understanding and improved it for both groups, numerate or not. With the first format, 44 percent of subjects in both groups said they felt it didn't matter which or if any treatment was given, despite more people surviving with medical aid. When Peters' revised presentation cleared up the data, that figure dropped below 10 percent for both groups.

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