Developing statistical reasoning assessment instrument for high school students in descriptive statistics

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing focus on central statistical ideas or 'big ideas' in statistical reasoning such as centre, distribution, and variability in research studies. To date, however, there is a paucity of assessments that integrate three statistical reasoning using information technology, i.e. reasoning about centre, spread, and distribution for high school students. Thus, a statistical reasoning assessment instrument concerning these domains is developed in order to enhance tenth-grade students' statistical reasoning abilities during the instruction. Its content was validated by three experts in related fields. There are five statistical reasoning tasks in the assessment instrument which have been created based on the initial statistical reasoning framework. Each item is associated with the sub-processes of four key constructs, i.e. describing data, organizing and reducing data, representing data, and analyzing and interpreting data. The dynamic spreadsheet of GeoGebra software is used as a technological tool in solving tasks. This statistical reasoning assessment instrument can be utilized by instructors and researchers for further investigation in future studies