Analysis of Children's Constructing and Interpreting of a Line Graph in Science

초등학생들의 과학 선 그래프 작성 및 해석 과정 분석

The purpose of this study was to examine elementary school students' characteristics and difficulties in drawing and interpreting a line graph, and to present educational implications. Twenty five students(4th grader: 6, 5th grader: 9, and 6th grader: 10) at an elementary school participated in this study. We used a student's task which was about graphing on a given data table and interpreting his/her graph. The data table was on heating 200mL and 500mL of water and measuring their temperature at regular time intervals. We collected multiple source of data, and data analyzed based on the sub-variables of TOGS. The some results of this study are as follows: First, five children (20.0%), especially two of 10 sixth graders (20.0%), could not construct a line graph about a given data table. Second, twenty students (80.0%) had the ability on 'Scaling axes' and on 'Assigning variables to the axes', however, only a student understood why the time is on the longitudinal axis and the temperature is on the vertical axis. Third, in the case of 'Plotting points', twelve children (48.0%) could drew two graphs on a coordinate. Fourth, in the case of 'Selecting the corresponding value for Y (or X)', twenty student had little difficulty. on 'Describing the relationship between variables', seventeen students (68.0%) understood the relationship between time and temperature of water, and the relationship between temperature and amount of water. Finally, eleven students (44%) had the ability on 'Interrelating and extrapolation graphs.' Educational implications are also presented in this paper.