The investigation of the ?statistics? dimension of the new middle school mathematics curriculum

The aim of this study was to examine the ?Statistics? dimension of ?Probability and Statistics? sub-learning area of the new reform-based middle school mathematics curriculum. In particular, it was to find out the levels of the 8th graders? problem solving abilities regarding the frequency table and graph? readings and interpretations and the calculation of measures of central tendency and spread about them, and to investigate the effects of variables, such as gender, parental-support, interests in mathematics, student-GPA, and so forth on students? problem solving skills. There were a total of 490 eighth grade students, 235 boys and 255 girls, involved in this study. The researcher used two tests to collect the data. One was a classic test including 10 questions. Eight of them were open-ended math questions about reading and interpretation, mean, mode, median, and so on, and the other two were about the construction of graphs from the frequency table. Likewise, the other test was a multiple-choice test consisting of 26 questions about reading and interpretation, mean, mode, median, and so on the graphs, histogram, frequency polygon and pie-chart. After the verification of the content validity of both tests, the researcher conducted a pilot study to find the reliability coefficient of the multiple-choice test. The reliability estimate of the test obtained by using Cronbach?s alpha measure was 0.85. Both tests were given to the participants in two class hours in their classrooms in spring semester. After the collection of the data, the researcher examined and assessed the each question on the classic test and coded them by giving 1 point if it was true or 0 point if it was wrong. In this way, the qualitative data was converted to the quantitative data. In the analysis of the quantitative data, the researcher employed the descriptive statistics, Paired-Samples t-test, Independent-Samples t-test, and One Way-ANOVA with alpha level 0.05.The study showed that roughly 70% of the participants in the construction of graphs, 93% of the participants in the calculation of the standard deviation, 66% of the students in the calculation of the mean, 63 % of the students in the finding of the median, 48 % of the students in the finding of the mode, 34 % of the students in the finding of the range and 60 % of the participants in the calculation of the other types of questions were not successful on the tests. Besides, the students had great difficulties with the construction of the graphs from the frequency table. Only 30.6 % of the students in the construction of frequency polygon and 29.2 % of the students in the construction of histogram graphs were successful. While the variable, gender, was not a great factor, the variables, interests in mathematics and student-GPA, were very important factors on students? problem solving skills in readings and interpretation of frequency tables, calculation and graphing. In other words, there were no differences found on students? problem solving skills in readings and interpretation of frequency tables, calculation and graphing between boys and girls, but the ones who likes mathematics and have good GPAs in mathematics were very successful.In addition, the study found that the students? successes were varied on the types of graphs in the examination of data and interpretation. The students? successes were as in the following order, frequency polygon, histogram, and pie-chart. The gender was not a prominent factor on students? problem solving skills in readings and interpretations of frequency polygon and histogram graphs. Conversely, gender was an important factor on students? problem solving skills in readings and interpretations of pie-chart favoring boys. Furthermore, the ones who like mathematics were more successful than the ones who do not like mathematics in the effects of readings and interpretations of graphs. Besides, the study pointed out that the both teacher and parental-supports were important variables on the students? success in this study.