Author:

Keywords:

Graph interpretation, refutational text, multiple external representations, conceptual change, intervention, Social Sciences, Education & Educational Research, Psychology, Educational, Psychology, COMPREHENSION, 1303 Specialist Studies in Education, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences, Education, 3904 Specialist studies in education, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology, 5205 Social and personality psychology

Abstract:

The ability to interpret graphs is highly important in modern society, but has proven to be a challenge for many people. In this paper, two teaching methods were used to remediate one specific misinterpretation: the area misinterpretation of box plots. First, we used refutational text to explicitly state and invalidate the area misinterpretation of box plots. Second, we used multiple external representations (MERs): Histograms were used as an overlay on box plots in order to give students a better insight in the way box plots represent data distributions. Third, we combined refutational text and MERs. We found that refutational text was successful in improving students’ interpretation of box plots, but that the use of MERs did not improve students’ interpretation of box plots. The addition of MERs also did not increase the effect of refutational text.