Developing assessment items to measure tertiary students' reasoning about explained and unexplained variability

Title
Developing assessment items to measure tertiary students' reasoning about explained and unexplained variability
Publication Date
2008
Author(s)
Reid, Jacqueline
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5193-3818
Email: jreid3@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:jreid3
Reading, Christine Elizabeth
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6906-7965
Email: creading@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:creading
Ellem, Bernard
Editor
Editor(s): Terrence Hays and Rafat Hussain
Type of document
Conference Publication
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
University of New England
Place of publication
Armidale, Australia
UNE publication id
une:4140
Abstract
As one of the principle forms of fundamental statistical thinking, consideration of variation impacts on all aspects of statistics. There has been extensive research about students' reasoning about variation and numerous assessment items have been developed to assess students' reasoning about many aspects of variability in data. However, there has been little research focusing on helping tertiary students model variability as a combination of explained and unexplained variability, and few items have been developed to assess this construct. An instrument is needed to assess this reasoning, before and after learning experiences, so that the change in level of reasoning can be measured. This can then inform curriculum development and the design of learning experiences. This paper presents a measurement instrument that was developed to assess tertiary students' intuitive reasoning about variation, focusing on explained and unexplained variability. The theoretical framework that provided the structure for the development of assessment items is discussed, followed by presentation of the results from a pilot study designed to test newly-developed items, and lastly the inclusion of previously-developed items is justified. Analysis of the responses led to clarification of those items that were misinterpreted by students or did not measure the relevant construct. The refined assessment items will be incorporated with previously-developed items in a measurement instrument to be administered to tertiary students enrolled in an introductory service statistics course. The direction for future research is also presented.
Link
Citation
Bridging the Gap between Ideas and Doing Research: Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Postgraduate Research Conference, p. 84-97
ISBN
1921208244
Start page
84
End page
97

Files:

NameSizeformatDescriptionLink
closed/SOURCE01.pdf 264.549 KB application/pdf Publisher version View document
closed/SOURCE03.pdf 931.477 KB application/pdf hidden View document
administrative/MODS.xml 5.491 KB MODS.xml View document
open/SOURCE02.pdf 254.111 KB application/pdf publisher version (open access) View document
open/THUMBNAIL.jpg 33.121 KB THUMBNAIL.jpg View document
open/JHOVESOURCE02.xml 0.542 KB JHOVE Technical Metadata View document
open/PREMISSOURCE02.xml 0.919 KB PREMIS Metadata View document
open/FULLTEXTSOURCE02.txt 37.088 KB Full Text of Source View document