This paper is from Session 7C: Promoting statistical literacy with visualisation
which comes under Topic 7: Statistical literacy in the wider society
Paper 7C3 (Thursday 12th, 14:00-15:30)
Vocational training students’ reading levels of statistical graphs
Presenter
- Pedro Arteaga (University of Granada, Spain)
Co-authors
- Carmen Batanero (University of Granada, Spain)
- J, Manuel Vigo (IES Puertas del Campo,, Spain)
- José Miguel Contreras (University of Granada, España)
Abstract
We analyse the open-ended responses given by 75 1st and 2nd year Vocational Training students (hairdressing and aesthetics specialty), to several questions concerning interpretation of graphs (bar graph, population pyramid, line graph, pie graph and cartogram). We propose a classification with five reading levels that combines those by Bertin and Curcio and evaluate the reading level reached by the students, using this new classification. In our results, few students reach the upper level of critically reading the graph and a considerable proportion did not reach the intermediate levels. We observed better performance in the 2nd year students, who had studied some statistics the previous year. We conclude the need to reinforce the students’ graphical competence to make them able to manage in the information society.