CHAPTER 4 29 CONSTRUCTING OR COMPLETING GRAPHS AND TABLES

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1 CHAPTER 4 29 CONSTRUCTING OR COMPLETING GRAPHS AND TABLES Fifteen of the assessment tasks presented students with information to be displayed in a graph or table and instructions for preparing the graph or table. In some cases, much of the graph or table was provided, and the student was to incorporate the additional information. In other cases, a framework was provided, but students were asked to add data, axis labels or value labels. Four tasks were completely or largely the same for year 4 and year 8 students. One of these is a link task (to be used again in 1999), and the other three are released tasks (fully described here). Four tasks, including one link task, were attempted only by year 8 students. The remaining seven tasks, including two link tasks, were attempted only by year 4 students. Fourteen tasks were presented in the stations format, where four students worked around a series of task stations, supervised and assisted where appropriate by a teacher. The last task was presented to students in the one-to-one interview format, with each student working individually with a teacher and their interactions videotaped. This Chapter presents the assessment results in the following order: released tasks attempted by year 4 and year 8 students link tasks attempted by year 4 and year 8 students, year 8 students only and year 4 students only released tasks attempted only by year 8 students released tasks attempted only by year 4 students. Each released task occupies one or more pages. The information provided includes the graph, table or map to be interpreted, the task instructions and questions, correct answers, and a table showing the percentages of students getting each question or task component correct. Some tasks also include a brief commentary on interesting features of the results. One task, which produced particularly interesting responses from year 4 students, is accompanied by two pages of examples of their responses. Each link task occupies one quarter of a page. A broad indication is given of the nature of the task, and a table is provided showing the percentages of students getting each question or task component correct. Results Averaged across all components of tasks completed by both year 4 and year 8 students, 85 percent of year 8 students produced correct responses, while 53 percent of year 4 students produced correct responses. Some tasks involved skills which would not yet have been formally taught to year 4 students. This helps to account for the large performance differences between year 4 and year 8 students. Students at both levels were least successful in providing appropriate labels for axes and values, seeming to believe that it was sufficient to display the data. Further emphasis in teaching programmes on the importance of appropriate labels may be desirable.

2 30 NEMP Report 3: Graphs, Tables and Maps 1995 School Sports Stations Level: Year 8 & Year 4 Partially completed graph and text. In Mrs Kelly s class, everyone plays sport on Friday afternoon. 5 children play soccer; 11 play hockey, 7 play netball, 2 do gym and 2 play rugby. Finish the bar graph to show the sports played in Room Sports played by Mrs Kelly's class number of students soccer hockey netball gym rugby sports Year 8 Year 4 Correct answers used a bar graph format and correct heights for the 3 bars entered

3 Chapter 3: Interpreting Graphs, Tables, Maps 31 Jelly beans Stations Level: Year 8 & Year 4 Plastic bag containing 6 blue, 4 green and 2 white jelly beans; incomplete pie graph and text. There are 12 jelly beans in the bag. Show how many there are of each colour as a pie graph. Year 8 Year 4 Format: pie graph other interpretable 4 40 Details 3 sectors labelled correctly sector sizes correct Commentary It is not surprising that most year 4 students did not appear to have learned how to construct a pie graph. Some of their efforts were quite creative! (See over).

4 32 NEMP Report 3: Graphs, Tables and Maps 1995 Year 4 examples: Jelly beans pie graph

5 Chapter 4: Constructing Graphs and Tables 33 Year 4 examples: Jelly beans pie graph

6 34 NEMP Report 3: Graphs, Tables and Maps 1995 Ice cream Stations Level: Year 8 & Year 4 Incomplete table, text, space to draw graph Part I When on holiday Maria had 3 icecreams, John had 2 and Tui had 4. They made this chart. Bob had 5 icecreams. Put this in the chart. Name Number of icecreams Maria 3 John 2 Tui 4 Part II Year 8 version People in different countries eat different amounts of icecream in a year. On average, each person in USA eats 22 litres a year, in Australia each person eats 18 litres, in Sweden 14 litres, in Denmark 9 litres, and in Britain 5 litres of icecream. Make a chart to show this information. Year 4 version Over one year Maria had 30 icecreams, John had 37, Tui had 24 and Bob had 60. Make a chart to show the number of icecreams they each had in one year. Year 8 Year 4 Part I Part II data headings & labels Commentary The majority of students at both levels made a table, following the model from Part I. A majority of students at both levels neglected to provide complete headings and labels for their chart.

7 Chapter 4: Constructing Graphs and Tables 35 Link task 11 Station Level: Year 8 & Year 4 Text and incomplete pie graph Year8 Year Link task 12 Link Tasks One to one interview Level: Year 8 only Text and incomplete line graph, axes already labelled. Year 8 87 Link task 13 Station Level: Year 4 only Text and axes for pictograph with labels on x axis, stickers. Year4 Format 85 No. of stickers 84 Link task 14 Station Level: Year 4 only Text and incomplete line graph, axes already labelled. Year4 45 Labelled Y axis 15

8 36 NEMP Report 3: Graphs, Tables and Maps 1995 Caterpillars Stations Level: Year 8 only Labelled graph paper and text. A science museum had a display of live butterflies. The butterflies produced more caterpillars than the museum expected. On day 1 there were no caterpillars. On day 3 there were 120 caterpillars. On day 5 there were 270. The caterpillars began to run out of food, so by day 7 the number of caterpillars had dropped to 150. Extra food was found. When the display closed on the 10th day there were 350 caterpillars. Show this as a graph. Number of caterpillars Days Year 8 selected appropriate format 89 points on x axis labelled 70 appropriate scale for x axis 54 points on y axis labelled 43 appropriate scale for y axis 55 data complete, accurate and properly spaced 38

9 Chapter 4: Constructing Graphs and Tables 37 Golf Balls Stations Level: Year 8 only Incomplete graph and text. William finds lost golf balls at the golf course. The golf club says he can sell them: 10 golf balls for $1. He finds 30 golf balls on Monday, 50 balls on Tuesday, 20 balls on Wednesday, 25 balls on Thursday, and 10 balls on Friday. On Saturday he sells all the balls. Golf balls William finds KEY =10 golf balls = 5 golf balls Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Day 1. Complete the pictograph to show the number of golf balls William finds 2. How much money will William make when he sells all of the golf balls on Saturday? STUDENT RESPONSES % answering correctly Year 8 88 $13 or $

10 38 NEMP Report 3: Graphs, Tables and Maps 1995 Super Frog Beepo Stations Incomplete graph and text. Level: Year 8 only Kelli is training her frog Beepo to do the long jump. She wants Beepo to win the Super Frog Jumping Contest that room 14 are running. At the end of each day she records Beepo s longest jump on a line graph. On Monday Beepo jumps 15cm. On Tuesday Beepo jumps 23cm. On Wednesday Beepo jumps 19cm. On Thursday Beepo jumps 29cm. On Friday Beepo jumps 27cm. 1 Finish Kelli s graph to show Beepo s jumps. 2.Write labels for the days and how far Beepo jumps. Beepo s longest jumps Year 8 points on X axis labelled 49 overall label for X axis 10 points on Y axis labelled 28 overall label for Y axis 13 data accurate 41

11 Chapter 4: Constructing Graphs and Tables 39 Station Unlabelled pie chart, text. Selling Chocolate Level: Year 4 only Tanya, Ricki and Jo sold chocolate bars. Tanya sold 20 bars. Ricki sold 12 bars. Jo sold 8 bars. Write their name by the piece of the pie chart that shows how much they sold. Year 4 all 3 labels in place 85

12 40 NEMP Report 3: Graphs, Tables and Maps 1995 Phone Cards Station Incomplete graph and text. Level: Year 4 only Chris collects phone cards. He collected 9 cards in the first week. At the end of the second week he had 16 cards. At the end of the third week Chris had 28 cards. At the end of the fourth week, he had 36 cards. Complete the graph to show the number of cards Chris had. Number of cards Telephone cards 2 3 Week Year 4 both points added and joined 25

13 Chapter 4: Constructing Graphs and Tables 41 Stations Labelled graph and text. Hungry Caterpillar Level: year 4 only A very small caterpillar visited a cherry tree. On Monday he ate 1 cherry. On Tuesday he ate 2 cherries. On Wednesday he ate 6 cherries. On Thursday he ate 4 cherries. On Friday he ate 9 cherries. On Saturday the caterpillar ate none. He was too busy turning into a butterfly. Draw a graph to show what the hungry caterpillar ate: Number of cherries Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Days of the week Year 4 suitable format 82 data accurate & complete 82

14 42 NEMP Report 3: Graphs, Tables and Maps 1995 Very Tall and Very Small One to one interview Level: Year 4 only Folding metre ruler, result sheet (shown), spoken instructions. The 1995 Guiness Book of Records tells us about world records. The tallest man ever was Robert Wadlow. He was about 275 cm tall. The shortest lady ever was Pauline Musters. She was about 60 cm tall. We will measure your height and you can write it in the space on the results sheet. Measure the student and give them the results sheet. Show the height of Pauline Musters and yourself on this bar graph. Robert s has been done for you. When the graph has been completed: Look at your graph. Try to tell me two things that the graph tells you. My height Pauline Musters 60 cm Robert Wadlow 275 cm cm Robert Pauline Me Year 4 bar format 87 Pauline Musters data 88 data on own height 43 2 appropriate comments 51

15 Chapter 4: Constructing Graphs and Tables 43 Station Pictures and incomplete graph, text. Garden Creatures Level: Year 4 only Room 14 did a study of the creatures in their gardens. Katy drew the creatures she saw like this: Finish the bar chart to show how many of each creature Katy saw. Creatures in Katy's Garden Number of 5 Creatures snails worms butterflies Creature spiders bees data entered in bar format Year heights accurate 66