Comparison and Analysis of Pre-Service Teachers' Knowledge of Measures of Central Tendency and Measures of Dispersion for Both Normal Data and Non-Normal Data Using Multiple Representations

摘要

The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service teachers' knowledge of measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion for both normal and non-normal data using tabular, numerical, and graphical representations. The participants of the study were 93 pre-service teachers at a southeastern university in the United States. Data of the study were collected using statistical questionnaires and analyzed using statistical analysis tools. The researcher found that, if we ignore the representation of the data, there is no significant difference between pre-service teachers' understanding of measures of central tendency and dispersion for either normal or non-normal data. However, the researcher also found that the representation of normal data can make a difference in pre-service teachers' understanding of measures of central tendency and dispersion. It was also found that for tabular and graphical representations of non-normal data, pre-service teachers understood measures of central tendency better than measures of dispersion. The researcher also observed that for both normal and non-normal data, for both measures of central tendency and dispersion, pre-service teachers performed better when using tabular representations than when using the other two representations. With only one exception, for both normal and non-normal data, for both measures of central tendency and dispersion, pre-service teachers performed least well when using graphical representations.