Seventh grade students' possible solution strategies, errors and misinterpretations regarding the concepts of mean, median and mode given in bar graph representations

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2014

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Enisoğlu, Didem

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The aim of the present study was to investigate the solution strategies used by seventh grade students and their possible errors while solving questions regarding the concepts of mean, median and mode given in bar graph representations. Students’ possible misinterpretation regarding the concepts of mean, median and mode given in bar graph representations was also examined. Partipants were 233 seventh grade students from two public middle schools in Gelibolu district of Çanakkale. Data were collected via Statistics Achievement Questionnaire (SAQ) during 2013-2014 spring semester. To address the research questions, students' possible solution strategies, errors and misinterpretations were identified through item based in-dept analysis. The results of the study indicated that students' used three different solution strategies to solve questions regarding each concept. On the other hand, analysis revealed that students made errors regarding each concept. For the mean concept, identified errors were operational error, finding total number, incorrect usage of averaging algorithm, accepted close values, looking pattern, turned to find smaller or larger numbers, not meeting all requirements of a problem, forming incomplete data set, and incorrect reading of values from graph. Furthermore, for the median concept, identified errors were operational error, wrong decision on unordered data set, wrong decision on ordered data set, wrong interpretation of graph, forming incomplete data set, incorrect reading of values from graph and incorrect largest and/or smallest data values. In addition to these, students' errors in the questions regarding the mode concept were inappropriate usage of averaging algorithm, forming incomplete data set and incorrect largest and/or smallest data values. Besides, students have several misinterpretations regarding the concepts of mean, median and mode.

Subject Keywords

Statistics, Graphic methods, Statistics, Science, Education, Elementary.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12618270/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/24256

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

D. Enisoğlu, “Seventh grade students’ possible solution strategies, errors and misinterpretations regarding the concepts of mean, median and mode given in bar graph representations,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2014.