Graph Interpretation Research Articles

Gender bias and gender differences in two South African tests of academic literacy

How much empirical evidence is there of gender bias in the Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL) and its Afrikaans counterpart, Toets van Akademiese Geletterdheidsvlakke (TAG)? This paper reports on meta-analyses of 24 academic tests, containing data of more than 60 000 first-year South African students. TALL appears to be gender-neutral, while for TAG some evidence was found that men slightly outperform women. This outcome can be attributed almost entirely to male students outperforming female students on the subtest requiring the interpretation of graphs and visual information. Women outperform men slightly on the subtest dealing with text types. These outcomes are presented in light of discussions on gender differences versus gender bias.

Mathematics Skills of 17-Year-Olds in the United States: 1978 to 2004

Overall scale scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicate that there was only minimal improvement in the mathematics performance of high school students between 1978 and 2004. Using recently released data from the Long-Term Trend (LTT) NAEP, this study describes the content covered on the LTT NAEP and the performance of 17-year-old students on that content. In addition, it demonstrates that although overall gains in performance were small, there were areas within mathematics in which performance improved substantially and others in which students in 2004 did not do as well as their counterparts of the 1970s and 1980s. Specifically, performance on 3 items involving multiplication of whole numbers by fractions deteriorated but performance improved on most tasks involving percents and geometry. Performance was stable on most items assessing algebraic reasoning and logical reasoning and was stable or improved modestly on items assessing estimation, interpretation of tables and graphs, and understanding of integers.

Commuting operations on signal-flow graphs for visualization of interconnected systems

We explore the signal flow graph as a setup for visualizing and analyzing interconnected systems. Two operations for facilitating interpretation of signal flow graphs are defined. These are hiding of unimportant nodes and elimination of self-references and it is shown that the operations commute under some conditions and that the hiding operation preserves the physical structure of the system in a certain sense. Also, the Loop Gain Index (LGI) is introduced as a measure of the relative importance of the edges in terms of dynamic behavior of the interconnected system. The LGI is illustrated with a numerical example.

Teaching Urban High School Students Global Climate Change Information and Graph Interpretation Skills Using Evidence from the Scientific Literature

Curriculum materials designed to provide students with practice interpreting plotted evidence of global climate change were developed using graphs from the scientific literature and tested with one hundred urban high school students from a high-poverty school in a major northern city in the US. The graph interpretation lessons followed a constructivist-teaching learning cycle format. Additional activities included watching videos related to climate change and completing a graphing exercise. Students displayed motivation during the lessons along with significant improvement from pretest to posttest in graph interpretation skills and content knowledge of organisms affected by climate change. Student motivation was revealed by task commitment during the exercises as well as requests for additional activities related to investigating environmental effects on organisms and stopping global climate change. The efficacy of the lessons is attributed to the concrete, manipulative nature of the graph interpretation sets, real-world connections of the topic, the focus on interesting organisms, the opportunity for students to express their views, and the use of multi-media.

“No! He starts walking backwards!”: interpreting motion graphs and the question of space, place and distance

This article deals with the interpretation of motion Cartesian graphs by Grade 8 students. Drawing on a sociocultural theoretical framework, it pays attention to the discursive and semiotic process through which the students attempt to make sense of graphs. The students’ interpretative processes are investigated through the theoretical construct of knowledge objectification and the configuration of mathematical signs, gestures, and words they resort to in order to achieve higher levels of conceptualization. Fine-grained video and discourse analyses offer an overview of the manner in which the students’ interpretations evolve into more condensed versions through the effect of what is called in the article “semiotic contractions” and “iconic orchestrations.”

Collaborative robotic instruction: A graph teaching experience

Graphing is a key skill in the study of Physics. Drawing and interpreting graphs play a key role in the understanding of science, while the lack of these has proved to be a handicap and a limiting factor in the learning of scientific concepts. It has been observed that despite the amount of previous graph-working experience, students of all ages experience a series of difficulties when trying to comprehend graphs or when trying to relate them with physical concepts such as position, velocity and acceleration. Several computational tools have risen to improve the students’ understanding of kinematical graphs; however, these approaches fail to develop graph construction skills. On the other hand, Robots have opened new opportunities in learning. Nevertheless, most of their educational applications focus on Robotics related subjects, such as robot programming, robot construction, and artificial intelligence. This paper describes a robotic activity based on face-to-face computer supported collaborative learning. By means of a set of handhelds and a robot wirelessly interconnected, the aim of the activity is to develop graph construction and graph interpretation skills while also reinforcing kinematics concepts. Results show that students using the robotic activity achieve a significant increase in their graph interpreting skills. Moreover, when compared with a similar computer-simulated activity, it proved to be almost twice as effective. Finally, the robotic application proved to be a highly motivating activity for the students, fostering collaboration among them.

한국과 미국 고등학교 지구과학 교과서의 지질학 탐구활동의 비교 분석

To present the suggestions for improvement in science textbooks of high school, scientific inquiry activities in geology of earth science textbooks of Korea and the U.S. were assessed in the areas of the contents, processes and contexts. Regarding the contents of inquiry activities, Korean textbooks contain more number of inquiry activities (5.8 per section) than the U.S. curriculums (4 per section). Inquiry activities of Korean textbooks mostly fall on the interpretation of diagrams and graphs whereas those of the U.S. textbooks more hands-on experiment, data transformation and self designing. As for the number of inquiry process skills per inquiry activity, Korean curriculums contain an average of 1.8 whereas the American ones 3. It suggests that the U.S. textbooks require more integrated process skills than the Korean earth science curriculums. In the process skills of all textbooks studied, the highest frequent elements were inferring and data interpretation; the percentage of these two elements was an average of 73.3% in Korean textbooks and 46.2% in the U.S. This suggests that the Korean textbooks emphasize the process skill on particular area, and uneven distribution of elements of process skills may hinder the development of integration ability of students. particularly in the integrated process skills, the U.S. textbooks presented all 7 elements, while Korean ones presented only 2 to 4 elements, indicating that the Korean textbooks may have weak points in providing various inquiry activities for students compared to the American textbooks. In inquiry context analysis, Korean curriculums provide simplistic inquiry contexts and low applicability to real life whereas the U.S. curriculums provide more integrated inquiry contexts and high applicability to real life.

Managing impressions using distorted graphs of income and earnings per share: The role of memory

This study investigates the role that memory plays in interpreting and using distorted graphs that mislead the user of the financial information. It draws upon the literatures concerning memory, impression management and effective graph design. In order to examine whether reliance on memory for distorted graphs leads to different impressions of the data, we conduct an experiment in which we manipulate the type of graph distortion and whether memory of the graph is required by the decision. We present evidence that individuals receiving misleading graphs are more likely to misinterpret underlying data trends and that memory moderates the effect depending upon the type of distortion used to mislead the individual. The resulting data interpretation errors lead to more positive judgments and investment decisions than would otherwise be warranted. Thus our findings suggest that graph distortions mislead users into incorrect conclusions about the underlying data and that these interpretation errors persist in memory and affect judgments and investment decisions. We extend the prior literature, which has not considered the direct effects of graph interpretation or the effects of memory, and provide a baseline for investigating the effects of memory on impression management.

Kinetics of thermal decomposition of Hekimhan–Deveci siderite ore samples

Different solid-state reaction models, by interpretation of the model graphs in terms of goodness of fit to real data points ( R-squared), are used to evaluate the reaction mechanism and the kinetics ( E, n) for the thermal decomposition of Hekimhan–Deveci siderite ore samples. Isothermal experiments at three different temperatures ( T = 505 °C, 520 °C, 535 °C) are run for t = 15–150 minutes while non-isothermal experiments are conducted at single heating rate (10 °C/min) using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Three-dimensional diffusion reaction models have been noted as the solid-state reaction model representing thermal decomposition kinetics of Hekimhan–Deveci siderite. The values of activation energy ( E), the optimum kinetics obtained, are E = 85.53 kj/mol (Jander three-dimensional diffusion reaction model); E = 85.49 kj/mol, (Ginstling–Brounshtein three-dimensional diffusion reaction model).

The Dark Matter of Lab Work: Illuminating the Negotiation of Disciplined Perception in Mechanics

This study examines the practical work of a pair of students and an instructor using probeware in a mechanics lab. The aim of the study is to describe and discuss a type of interactional sequence that we refer to as dark matter, the ordinary backdrop to the extraordinary sequences that are easily recognizable as clear-cut instances of learning. Although this work is downplayed in the research literature, describing it is critical to properly understanding lab work as an educational practice. With a focus on the negotiation of disciplined perception, we analyze a number of episodes wherein a pair of students and an instructor struggle with the construction and interpretation of a graph depicting a linear relationship between force and acceleration. We demonstrate an intimate interplay between how the students display their problems and understandings and how the instructor tries to make the subject matter content visible and thus learnable. The analyzed episodes are illuminating with regard to the analytical notion of disciplined perception as applied to graph interpretation; the cognitive and practical competencies involved in producing, recognizing, and understanding graphs in mechanics; and the interactive work by which these competencies are made into objects of learning and instruction.

Investigating a Hierarchy of Students’ Interpretations of Graphs

The ability to analyse qualitative information from quantitative information, and/or to create new information from qualitative and quantitative information is the key task of statistical literacy in the 21st century. Although several studies have focussed on critical evaluation of statistical information, this aspect of research has not been clearly conceptualised as yet. This paper presents a hierarchy of the graphical interpretation component of statistical literacy. 175 participants from different educational levels (junior high school to graduate students) responded to a questionnaire and some of them were also interviewed. The SOLO Taxonomy was used for coding the students’ responses and the Rasch model was used to clarify the construction of the hierarchy. Five different levels of interpretations of graphs were identified: Idiosyncratic, Basic graph reading, Rational/Literal, Critical, and Hypothesising and Modelling. These results will provide guidelines for teaching statistical literacy.

Investigating the Interpretation of Media Graphs among Student Teachers

The official inclusion of the teaching of graphing in school curricula has motivated increasing research and innovative pedagogical strategies such as the use of media graphs in school contexts. However, only a few studies have investigated knowledge about graphing among those who will teach this curricular content. We discuss aspects of the interpretation of media graphs among primary school student teachers from Brazil and England. We focus on data which came from questionnaires and interviews which gives evidence of the mobilisation of several kinds of knowledge and experiences, in the interpretation of media statistical graphs. The discussion of results might contribute to an understanding of the complexity of the interpretation of such graphs, and to the development of pedagogical strategies which can help teachers think about the teaching and learning of statistics in ways that will support the balance of these kinds of knowledge.

Linguistic Invention and Semantic Warrant Production: Elementary Teachers’ Interpretation of Graphs

In this qualitative study of mathematical discourse between elementary teachers, we examined linguistic invention and semantic warrant production as participants made successive attempts to communicate mathematical ideas. Linguistic invention is a creative practice of describing mathematics in terms of personal experience. We introduce semantic warrant production, which emerged as part of our analysis of substantial arguments produced by teachers learning mathematics. Participants engaged in linguistic invention and semantic warrant production to convince themselves and others of the validity of their mathematical inferences about a graph of rate of change versus time. Personal experiences that are taken-as-shared in a learning community can support accurate mathematical inference if connections between conventional language, common experiences, and mathematical representations are made explicit by learners.

Comparison of Peak Expiratory Flow Variability Between Workers With Work-Exacerbated Asthma and Occupational Asthma

Peak expiratory flow (PEF) monitoring is frequently used to diagnose occupational asthma (OA). The variability of PEF between periods at work and away from work has not been described in workers with work-exacerbated asthma (WEA). We sought to assess and compare the diurnal variability of PEF during periods at and away from work between subjects with OA and WEA. Workers referred for work-related asthma underwent PEF monitoring for 2 weeks at and away from work. The diagnostic of OA or WEA was subsequently made according to the respective positivity or negativity of the specific inhalation challenges. PEF mean diurnal variability was calculated during periods at and away from work. PEF graphs were also interpreted using direct visual analysis by five observers and using a computer program (Oasys-2, Expert System ) [available at: http://www.occupationalasthma.com]. Thirty-four subjects were investigated (WEA, n = 15; OA, n = 19). There was a greater variability of PEF at work than away from work in both OA (19.8 +/- 8.7% vs 10.7 +/- 6.3%, p < 0.001) and WEA (14.2 +/- 4.8% vs 10.6 +/- 5.6%, p = 0.02). However, the magnitude of the variability was higher in OA than in WEA (p = 0.02). The visual interpretation of PEF or the Oasys-2 program failed to distinguish WEA from OA. Although workers with OA showed a higher PEF variability than workers with WEA when at work, clinicians were unable to reliably differentiate OA from WEA using the visual interpretation of PEF graphs or the computerized analysis.

Denser Packings Obtained in O(n log log n) Time

The placement problem is that of packing a set of rectangles into a minimum-area enclosing rectangle. Since it is difficult to optimize directly on a placement, a number of topological representations have been presented in the literature. One of the most successful is the sequence pair representation. As opposed to previous papers using sequence pair, we do not make use of the corresponding constraint graph, but interpret the sequences as a packing order in a constructive algorithm. All placements generated are semi-normalized, i.e., each module is moved as far left and down as possible according to the current packing contour. It is shown that the two interpretations are equivalent for any minimum-area placement, and for a given sequence pair the new interpretation results in a placement using no more area than the constraint graph interpretation. The transformation runs in O(nlog log n) time and it is able to handle various constraints on the location of modules. Computational results based on a simulated-annealing framework show that the algorithm is able to improve significantly on the best found solutions for benchmark very large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuit design problems using less than ten seconds of CPU time. For large packing problems it is able to find solutions quickly that waste no more than 3%–5percnt; of the space.

Characterization of protein-interaction networks in tumors.

BackgroundAnalyzing differential-gene-expression data in the context of protein-interaction networks (PINs) yields information on the functional cellular status. PINs can be formally represented as graphs, and approximating PINs as undirected graphs allows the network properties to be characterized using well-established graph measures.This paper outlines features of PINs derived from 29 studies on differential gene expression in cancer. For each study the number of differentially regulated genes was determined and used as a basis for PIN construction utilizing the Online Predicted Human Interaction Database.ResultsGraph measures calculated for the largest subgraph of a PIN for a given differential-gene-expression data set comprised properties reflecting the size, distribution, biological relevance, density, modularity, and cycles. The values of a distinct set of graph measures, namely Closeness Centrality, Graph Diameter, Index of Aggregation, Assortative Mixing Coefficient, Connectivity, Sum of the Wiener Number, modified Vertex Distance Number, and Eigenvalues differed clearly between PINs derived on the basis of differential gene expression data sets characterizing malignant tissue and PINs derived on the basis of randomly selected protein lists.ConclusionCancer PINs representing differentially regulated genes are larger than those of randomly selected protein lists, indicating functional dependencies among protein lists that can be identified on the basis of transcriptomics experiments. However, the prevalence of hub proteins was not increased in the presence of cancer. Interpretation of such graphs in the context of robustness may yield novel therapies based on synthetic lethality that are more effective than focusing on single-action drugs for cancer treatment.

Physics students’ performance using computational modelling activities to improve kinematics graphs interpretation

The purpose of this study was to investigate undergraduate students’ performance while exposed to complementary computational modelling activities to improve physics learning, using the softwares Modellus. Interpretation of kinematics graphs was the physics topic chosen for investigation. The theoretical framework adopted was based on Halloun’s schematic modelling approach and on Ausubel’s meaningful learning theory. The results of this work show that there was a statistically significant improvement in the experimental group students’ performance when compared to the control group, submitted just to a conventional teaching method. Students’ perception with respect to the concepts and mathematical relations, as well as the motivation to learn, originated by the activities, have played a fundamental role in these findings.

A measure for mutual refinements of image segmentations

In this paper, we recover a graph interpretation of the mutual partition distance, proposed recently by Cardoso and Corte-Real. We deduce some properties of this measure, and establish a correspondence with the partition distance introduced by Almudevar and Field and Gusfield, and independently by Guigues. We also present some different formulations for the computation of the mutual partition distance. Finally, a comparison is made with similar measures.

Undergraduate Pre-Service Teachers' Understandings and Misconceptions of Phase Equilibrium

This study aimed to reveal pre-service chemistry teachers' misunderstandings in phase equilibrium. An open-ended test was developed in the light of the findings obtained from the related literature, interviews with instructors and investigation of physical chemistry course examination papers belonging to the last three educational years. The instrument was administered to 59 pre-service chemistry teachers in the Faculty of Education in a public university in Turkey. Eighteen misunderstandings were identified through analysis of the answers. The results indicated that some misunderstandings originated from a misuse of Le Chatelier's principle and the ideal gas law. Other reasons for the misunderstandings were incorrect interpretation of graphs and inappropriate generalizations of facts or formulae.

Using Probeware to Improve Students' Graph Interpretation Abilities

Using Probeware to Improve Students' Graph Interpretation Abilities