An Analysis of Statistical Reasoning Process of High School Students in Solving the Statistical Problem

Abstract

Reasoning and problem-solving are interrelated competencies and are two important competencies in school math learning including statistics. Both competencies are targets in the school’s mathematics curriculum. The purpose of this study is to investigate the statistical reasoning of high school students in solving statistical problems i.e. the size of data center and standard deviation. The subjects of this study are students with high and low mathematical abilities obtained from mathematics ability test results given to 450 students of class XI from three different schools in Makassar, Indonesia. This research is a descriptive research with the qualitative approach. The results showed that in solving the standard deviation problem students with high and low mathematical ability to know the algorithm well and procedural can finish the calculation well but do not know the concept of deviation standard so cannot interpret the results obtained. It is also found that students with high and low mathematical ability to solve problems well procedural on the material of data centering, but cannot interpret the context in context, especially on median materials. In short, the two students had poor conceptions and poor reasoning in descriptive statistics especially in determining median and standard deviations. Other findings of students with high mathematical ability may represent in the form of graphs, diagrams, histograms and bar charts, whereas students with low mathematical abilities can only represent data in the form of bar charts, graphs, and pie charts.