An Investigation On Students’ Levels Of The Concepts Of Data Analysis In Grade 9

The Concepts of Data Analysis is one of the ten core concepts listed in Curriculum Standards for Mathematics of Compulsory Education(2011 version), and the study of both its connotation and assessment framework possesses theoretical value. Meanwhile, new mathematics textbooks(Jiangsu Science and Technology Press) were used in the fall of 2013 in Jiangsu Province. Until now, the new textbooks have been used for the first three-year, therefore, several issues need to be explored, such as “what level of the concepts of data analysis have the students reached?”, and “has the utilization of information technology in this field realized the expectation of curriculum standard?”. This exploration owns positively practical meaning.Based on literatures concerning the connotation of the concepts of data analysis, the study mainly established three dimensions, including the awareness of applying data, the awareness of using methods of data analysis, and the understanding of randomness. Besides, this study improved the current assessment framework and then divided each dimension into three levels. Restricted by the research time and textbooks arrangement, this study only investigated on the ninth grade students in Zhenhua Middle School in Suzhou and adopted the mixed methods research of mainly qualitative analysis supplemented by quantitative analysis, including questionnaire research and interviews with the students in the first step, and then communicating with the mathematics teachers.Through the investigation, this paper drew conclusions as follows:1. The ninth grade students basically possess the concepts of data analysis, and show imbalanced performance in the three dimensions. When faced with practical problems, the majority of these students lack the awareness of applying data and seldom think about the associations or advantages and disadvantages of different analysis methods with the same data after solving mathematic problems. Furthermore, some students are not clear about the essential difference between probability and frequency, and fail to understand enough for the randomness.2. These students are familiar with few information technology methods to process data and seldom have enough opportunity to operate. The main cause could be the poor coordination of arrangement of information technology course and mathematic course, which lead to the result that the utilization efficiency of educational resources is low.3. The teachers in the middle school almost agree with the centralized layout of Statistics and Probability in the new mathematics textbooks.According to the above conclusions, this paper suggested that mathematic problems with less normal but more realistic background should be emphasized in the exercise of Statistics and Probability, calculators can be allowed using again in the senior high school entrance examination, and the curriculum should coordinate the balance between the information technology and Statistics and Probability.