Date of Award

11-2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Education (Curriculum and Instruction)

Department

Curriculum and Methods of Instruction

First Advisor

Dr. Hassan H. Tairab

Second Advisor

Dr. Ali Khalfan Al-Naqbi

Third Advisor

Dr. Qasim Al-Shannag

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the scientific graphical literacy level of the 10th grade science students, and explore the extent to which students at 10th grade have the essential skills to process and interpret visual scientific graphs in the private and public schools in Al Ain educational Zone. This study was exploratory survey design in which an attempt was made to explore student understanding of scientific graphs. A Graphical Literacy Test was developed for this study to evaluate the student ability to interpret, and construct graphical information. 125 grade10th science students participated in the present study. Sixty two of them were female and the rest (63) were male students. Out of the sample, 95 of the students were from public schools. The result showed that students have better performance in graph interpretation than graph construction; students exhibited graph interpretation misconception related to graph “visual perception”, “graph recognition”, and “reading multiple graphs; misconception related encoding Information into a line graph, and mathematical knowledge of graph construction. There was a statistically significant association between 10th grade student graphical literacy and their level of graph interpretation, and graph construction. Female students significantly outperformed their males in graph literacy level, graph interpretation performance, while both female and male students showed poor performance in graph construction. viii Based on the findings reported in the present study, the present study have educational implications for curriculum planners and developers, science teachers, and students in relation to how to adequately develop graphical literacy in students. Based on the findings reported in the present study, more research studies are needed to further explore students’ difficulties with graphical skills and how graphical literacy is developed by students.

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