The examination of reading and interpretation achievement levels of 5th grade students about frequency table and graphs

The aim of this study was to examine the reading and interpretation achievement levels of 5th grade students regarding frequency table and graphs. This study was carried out in Afyonkarahisar and 181 girls and 181 boys totally 362 fifth grade students were involved in this research study. After the verification of the content validity of the tests, the researcher conducted a pilot study to find the reliability coefficient of the multiple-choice tests. The reliability estimates of the tests obtained by using Cronbach's alpha measure were 0. 72 for the test about line graph and 0.80 for the test about bar graph. The quantitative data was analysed by using Friedman test, Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U test. After the analysis of the data, the study showed that the students' reading and interpretation achievement levels were in the following orders; bar graphs, line graphs, and frequency tables. Moreover it was concluded that the gender was an important factor and girls were more successful than boys in answering to the questions about bar graphs. Similarly, it was seen that the variable of student's lesson interest was an important factor. Those who were interested in Maths were more successful than those who were not interested in. Keywords: Fifth grades, frequency table, gender, mathematics interest, graph reading and interpretation.