Eye tracking secondary school students’ strategies when interpreting statistical graphs

Abstract

Students persistently misinterpret histograms. Based on a literature review we conjectured that the confusion of histograms with case-value plots was leading to inappropriate interpretation strategies. Hence, the question for this research is: what are the most common strategies for secondary school students when estimating the mean in histograms and case-value plots? In a task with twelve graphs (histograms or case-value plots) we measured students’ eye movements (N=10, grade 10–11. The most common strategies students use are: a case-value plot interpretation strategy and a computational strategy both applied to histograms. Furthermore, some students reported strategies that are not in line with their gaze data nor their estimated mean.