A Study Of Secondary School Students' Comprehension On Statistical Table

"The Standards of Mathematics Curriculum for Compulsory Education (Trial Draft)" and "The Standards of Mathematics Curriculum for Senior High School (Trial)" issued by Ministry of Education of People's Republic of China in 2001 and 2003 clearly stated that statistics should be an integral part of school mathematics in China. Statistical tables as one of new topics appeared in the new Standards, will be enhanced at school level. Therefore, it is urgent and necessary to investigate Chinese students' cognitive development of statistical tables to look for appropriate teaching ways. Secondary school students' abilities of comprehending and making statistical tables are research domains in this study. 667 students without any formal course on statistical tables selected from grades 7, 8, 10 and 11 were surveyed and 66 of the students were interviewed. It was found that the students' abilities of comprehending and making statistical tables are not satisfactory and it is necessary to popularize fundamental knowledge of statistics. For simple structure statistical tables, the results of research showed that about 85% of the students have achieved the level of processing data information locally, but only 49% of the students have achivevd the level of reading beyond the data, which requires extension, prediction, or inference. For complicated structure statistical tables, 65% of the students have achieved the level of processing data information locally, but only 27% of the students have achieved the level of reading beyond the data, which requires extension, prediction, or inference. As for making statistical tables, about half of the students have achieved the level of making simple statistical tables, but only 17% of the students have achieved the level of making complicated statistical tables. The results of researth also showed that with the increasing of students' age, their abilities of comprehending and making statistical tables are increasing. However, the speed is not common for different tables. This paper also investigated the students' main errors occured in their comprehending and making statistical tables. Some common errors were observed and it was probably because the students' limited knowledge of statistical tables.Basing on the findings of this study, some suggestions for secondary school teachers and curriculum developers were given al the end of this thesis.