The Research On The Development Of Primary School Students’ Concept Of Data Analysis

Along with the development of information and scientific progress, the statistical ideas and methods has become the necessary knowledge for the future citizen to adapt the daily life and social product. So it is a focusing item in worldwide to design the more reasonable statistical curriculums. In 《Standard for compulsive education of mathematics curriculum(2011)》, “concept of data analysis” is a core concept for statistical curriculum.Along with the deepness of the curriculum reforming, we need descript the concrete behavior of the concept of data analysis, understand the development of students of the concept of data analysis, to combine the development of ideas of data analysis with the curriculum teaching. For this purpose, our research focuses on the following three problems.Problem 1:In what stage and character are the primary school students to develop their concept of data analysis after a series of learning activities under the theme of context?Problem 2:Does the series of learning activities under the theme of context enhance the students’ concept of data analysis?Problem 3:What will inspire the curriculum design and teaching?Our study draws lessons from(Lev S. Vygotsky,1896-1934)on “theory of zone of proximal development”, to urge embodying the potential of the students in cooperation with the classmates and the teachers. For this,we design 13 activities under 6 themes of context. According to the test behavior after these activities, we descript the development stage and character of their concept of data analysis.Because our study involves 9 items under 3 dimensions for data analysis, from Grade 2 to 6, we need carry out tests, interviews, a series of learning activities, observing. As the large amount of works, we only choose the students of Grade 2-6 from one primary school in Haidian, Beijing. We choose randomly one class from one grade, the total number is 165 samples. At same time, to understand the concrete changes of the students, from each grade we choose to 2 target groups to observe.Our study gets the following conclusions:(1) We construct the frame work to evaluate the concept of data analysis. At first, we classify the concept of data analysis into 3 dimensions, in each one, further classified into 3 items. In details, Dimension 1: realize to collect data, including “data idea”, “discovering and posing statistical problem”, “designing the plans”. Dimension 2, understand the information inside the data, including “probing the information from data”, “using the data to infer”, “choosing the method according context”. Dimension 3: realizing the randomness of the data, including “ the randomness in date inference”, “the randomness in statistical problem”, “the randomness in sampling”. Except the data idea, the items in every dimension are classified into 4 levels according to the students’ answers. The classification mainly depends on the existing research results and the analysis of the students’ answers, and also refers to the pre-structure level(P), uni-structure level(U), multi-structure(M) and relation-structure level(R) in SOLO classification.(2) We research systematically the development stage of the primary students in our country under teaching. Thinking about the difference of the contexts in 3 dimensions, and to present concrete suggestions for the curriculum design, our study first descripts the development stage and character in different items of the students. And through observing and comparing, we find that although there exist some differences, the students in Grade 2-6 have 4 stages under each item: self-character, transition, thinking locally and globally. For example, for discovering and posing questions, Grade 2 is in “transition”, Grade 2-5 after activities us in “thinking locally”, Grade 6 is in “thinking globally”.(3) We develop the series learning activities to enhance the students’ concept of data analysis, including 13 activities under 6 themes of context. Through the comparison between pre- and post-tests, the post-test is obviously improved on data idea, discovering and posing question, getting information from the data, using the data to infer. For other items, we did not arrange pre-test. But from the students’ development case, the chips to instructing the students, we find the activities enhancing the progress of the students. On this basis, we conclude the characters of activities from the items which enhance the students’ progress, and present the general suggestions for teaching. In short, the problem solving series learning activities of the teacher design subject situation, and encourage students to accumulate experience in the problem solving, is undoubtedly an important way to develop students’ concept of data analysis.According the results in our study, we present the following suggestion for statistical curriculum:(1) Grasp the essential period of statistics study, design the activities suit to the students’ experience.(2) Outline in detail the target of curriculum about “discovering and posing questions”, design globally the series of activities.(3) Pay attention to the activities of design the plans, encourage the students to experience the whole process.(4) Embody the core contribution of “distribution”, systematically design the curriculum of statistics.(5) Emphasis “the data inference” and “method selection”, try to develop suitable materials.(6) Grasp the reasonable request of “the randomness of data”, pay attention to the students’ accumulation of active experiences.