Middle School Students’ Graph Skills and Affective States about Graphs

Abstract

This survey design study was designed to test whether the graph skills and affective states of middle school students about graphs differ by their gender, grade level, and graph types (line, bar, and pie). The data collection instruments consisted of two scales developed by the authors and a Graph Skills Test, which consisted of graph questions from the previous TIMSS and PISA exams. Based on the findings, while middle school students were found to succeed at reading the data level graph questions, they were found to struggle in questions requiring higher graph skills, such as graph interpretation and graph construction. As for the affective states investigated, participants were found to hold high self-efficacy beliefs and positive attitudes toward graphs. No significant difference among the dependent variables (graph skills, self-efficacy beliefs about graphs, attitudes toward graphs, and graph literacy perceptions) was found by gender; however, grade level and graph type variables were found to impact students’ graph skills, graph attitudes, and personal graph literacy perceptions. Middle school students with less school experience with graphs (seventh graders) were found to hold more positive attitudes toward graphs than the eighth graders. On the contrary, eighth graders were found to perform better at graph questions requiring interpretations of the graph data. Also, participants in all subgroups were found to hold significantly higher personal graph literacy perceptions for the bar graphs, than the line graphs and pie charts. Based on the findings of the study, while middle school students were found to hold positive affective states about graphs, they were found to lack advanced graph skills. In agreement with the previous literature, it is recommended that graph literacy should become a dedicated part of the school curriculum.

The Investigation of Meta-Affective Differences Between Gender in Vocational High Schools During Learning Science

“…Regarding the affective states examined, it was discovered that individuals had high selfefficacy beliefs and favourable opinions toward graphs. Gender did not significantly affect the dependent variables (graph skills, self-efficacy beliefs about graphs, attitudes toward graphs, and personal perceptions of graph literacy); however, grade level and graph type variables did affect students' graph skills, attitudes toward graphs, and personal perceptions of their own graph literacy (Bursal Yetis, 2020).…”

Examination Of Graphs In Lgs Turkish And Mathematics Questions

“…Bursal (2019) ortaokul Fen dersi için grafik türlerine göre grafik okuryazarlığı ölçeği geliştirmiştir. Bu çalışmalarda elde edilen sonuçlardan hareketle farklı derslere ilişkin araştırılmalar yapılsa da ulaşılan sonuçlar açısından benzer biçimde öğrencilerin grafikte yer alan verileri okumada iyi sayılabilecekleri ancak grafikleri düşük düzeyde yorumlayabildikleri görülmektedir (Bursal ve Yetiş, 2020;Güler ve Didiş Kabar, 2021). Benzer şekilde de Özmen vd.…”

Determining the graphical literacy levels of the middle school mathematics teachers

“…Considering the role of teachers in helping students become graphically literate, it is important that teachers also have these skills. When the literature is examined, it is seen that the studies on graphs are generally carried out with students (Arteaga et al, 2021;Bolch & Jacobbe, 2019;Bragdon et al, 2019;Bursal & Polat, 2020;Bursal & Yetis, 2020;Díaz-Levicoy et al, 2019;Galesic & Garcia-Retamero, 2010;Glazer, 2011;Guler, 2019;Hotmanoglu, 2014;Kaynar & Halat, 2012;Ozmen et al, 2020;Selamet, 2014;Sezgin-Memnun, 2013;Wu, 2004). Bolch and Jacobbe (2019) examined the graph comprehension of university students within the scope of the evaluation questions in the levels of conceptual understanding in statistics (LOCUS) project, which was carried out to improve students' statistical understanding.…”

“…In addition, it is stated that the students mostly have difficulty with the questions that require reading the circle graph. Bursal and Yetis (2020), in their study to determine the graphs skills of seventh and eighth-grade students, revealed that students can reading the graphs, but their interpreting the graphs and drawing skills are insufficient. Wu (2004) evaluated the graph comprehension of 907 students with 13 and 15 years at four levels: reading the graph, interpretation the graph, drawing the graph and evaluating the graph.…”