  In an effort to improve the quality of citizen engagement in workplace,
politics, and other domains in which quantitative reasoning plays an important
role, Quantitative Literacy (QL) has become the focus of considerable research
and development efforts in mathematics education. QL is characterized by
sophisticated reasoning with elementary mathematics. In this project, we extend
the notions of QL to include the physics domain and call it Physics
Quantitative Literacy (PQL). We report on early stage development from a
collaboration that focuses on reasoning inventory design and data analysis
methodology for measuring the development of PQL across the introductory
physics sequence. We have piloted a prototype assessment designed to measure
students' PQL in introductory physics: Physics Inventory of Quantitative
Literacy (PIQL). This prototype PIQL focuses on two components of PQL:
proportional reasoning, and reasoning with negative quantities. We present
preliminary results from approximately 1,000 undergraduate and 20 graduate
students.
