The determination of using skills for statistical representation forms of garde 6-8. level students

The new mathematics curriculum aims to have student gain necessary knowledge and skills which help them develop their mathematical thinking abilities and use them in daily life. One of these skills is related to statistics. The goal of this study is determine skills of elementary school students (grades 6-8) related to statistics.The research was run at two primary schools centered in Edirne in 2009-2010 academic year. Students totaling to 192 were among 6th, 7th and 8th grades. The proficiency test was developed and applied to the participants in order to determine their abilities of using the statistic representation forms. The questions in the proficiency test were prepared in accordance with primary school mathematics curriculum. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies (f) and percentages (%) were used.Findings of the study imply that students participated in the research were able to form tables and charts using data. It is determined that the students could arrange the data in the sub learning field of drawing and reading chart, but the students couldn?t comprehend the relation between the concepts in the sub learning field of central tendency (mode, median, arithmetic mean) and distribution (range, quartiles, standard deviation). Also, they were not able to predict which representation styles will be used in which situation. It is indicated that the 8th grade students aren?t good enough at forming histogram, and they are unaware of histogram concept. In the light of findings, some suggestions were presented.