Measuring middle school students’ interest in statistical literacy

Abstract

The following paper describes the development of an instrument designed to assess middle school students' interest in statistical literacy. The paper commences with a review of the literature as it relates to interest in this context and then proposes a theoretical model upon which the proposed instrument is based. The Rasch Rating Scale model is then applied to student responses to items in the instrument and fit statistics are analysed in order to assess the extent to which these responses conform to the requirements of the measurement model. The paper then presents evidence, including interview data, to support the validity of interpretations that can be made from the proposed instrument. The findings suggest that the proposed instrument provides a theoretically sound measure of middle school students' interest for statistical literacy that will be useful for the evaluation of interventions aimed at developing these students' statistical literacy.

Role of Mathematical Self-Efficacy and Self-Concept in Mathematics Achievement: A Structural-Motivational Model

“…Considering these explanations, we can say that the Turkish family structure and the collectivist culture are similar, based upon the perspective of the children and individuals' profile features. Thus, our finding is consistent, though it is surprising, and Carmichael, Callingham, Hay and Watson's (2010) study revealed that mathematics interest exhibits a quadratic connection with mathematical self-efficacy, in that those students who have high mathematical self-efficacy are aware that they can do mathematics tasks well, and in consequence will lose attention or interest (Silvia 2003), and many studies' finds (e.g. Pajares & Miller 1994;Güzel 2006) that recommended that students who have a high mathematical selfefficacy demonstrated higher mathematics performances than students who have a low mathematical self-efficacy and vice versa.…”

Average: the juxtaposition of procedure and context

“…None appeared for more than one year-level pair. In a study of middle school students of the same age as this study, Carmichael and Hay (2009) reported gender differences for males and females on questions relating to the interests they had related to statistical literacy contexts. They found significantly more positive responses for males to three questions that potentially could contribute to better performance on Q5 based on the mean and Q23 on outliers: "I'm interested in working on problems involving data and statistics"; "I'm interested in looking up unusual statistics"; "I'm interested in using averages to compare sports."…”

Evaluating the Practices of Instructors Teaching Statistics Courses from Different Undergraduate Programs in Terms of Statistical Literacy

“…Öğretim elemanları da olası hata ve yanılgılara yer vermelerini öğrencilerin yanlış anlam geliştirmelerini önlemek şeklinde gerekçelendirmektedir. Öğrencilerin olası hata ve yanılgıları bilmesi veya farkında olması önemli görülmektedir (Carmichael, Callingham, Watson ve Hay, 2009;Gal, 2002). Ancak bu göstergenin derslerde matematik tabanlı uyarılar etrafında yoğunlaşması kavram yanılgılı durumlara yer verilmesini engellemektedir.…”