Mental Action Way of Understanding (WoU) and Way of Thinking (WoT) Students in Statistics Learning in Higher Education

Abstract

This study aims to examine in depth the Mental Action Way of Understanding (WoU) and Way of Thinking (WoT) of students in learning Statistics in Higher Education and the relationship between WoU and WoT. This research is qualitative research using the Grounded Theory approach. The participants involved were 36 people in the city of Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. Validity and reliability using the Krippendorff content analysis method with the Inter-coder Agreement (ICA) test using Krippendorff alpha coefficients. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between students' mental action statistics and students' WoU and WoT in Statistical Understanding and Thinking. The relationship between WoU and WoT: (1) Students’ WoU will build such a statistical framework. (2) Students’ WoT affects how statistical modeling from their statistical knowledge. This relationship fits the philosophy of statistics and inductive inference. The statistical mental action of WoU students was to make models, analyze, calculate and generalize. The mental actions of Statistics students from WoT were interpreting, analyzing, predicting, reasoning, and inferring. The WoU and WoT mental action models developed the PPDC Cycle model and the Gal’s statistical literacy model. the PPDAC Cycle model by Wild and Pfankuch, consists of five dimensions, and one of the dimensions was the PPDAC Cycle. The statistical literacy model by Gal consists of two dimensions, namely the dimensions of statistical knowledge and disposition. The novelty of this research was developing the PPDAC Cycle statistical thinking model by Wild and Pfankuch, and the statistical literacy model on the statistical knowledge dimension by Gal. This study's results can be considered in designing statistical learning in universities and measuring students' understanding and statistical thinking skills.