Understanding, Evaluating, and Diagnosing Undergraduate Student Difficulties with Graph Choice and Construction

Creating effective graphical representations of biological data is an essential component in the practices of science and involves engaging concepts and skills of quantitative literacy. With undergraduate biology students increasingly involved in scientific inquiry and experimentation, they are faced with the task of choosing and creating appropriate graphical representations of their data to communicate their findings. However, difficulties with graph choice and construction that were previously documented in literature, still exist today at both the K-12 and undergraduate levels. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand the reasoning involved behind choosing certain graph types and the process that occurs during graph construction, and to design and validate instructional materials to improve graphing skills.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Biological Science

Year

2016

Author dc:creator

• Angra, Aakanksha

Contributors dc:contributor

• Stephanie M. Gardner
• Nancy Pelaez
• Edward Bartlett
• Signe Kastberg

• biology
• choice
• construction
• graph
• reasoning
• undergraduate

Repository record dc:identifier

https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/1207

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:docs.lib.purdue.edu:open_access_dissertations-2423