The issue of learning opportunity in college statistics from the perspective of reading to learn was the main concern in this study. This study contributes to the literature in some essential parts. In general, although there have been some studies focusing on statistics texts used in college statistics (e.g., Cobb, 1987; Harwell et al., 1996;
Huberty & Barton, 1990), none has taken the perspective of reading to learn by including the accessibility of statistics text. In addition, since research using
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Indonesian context is scarce in statistics education, the use of Indonesian pre-service EFL teachers as participants of this study may enrich the study field.
More particularly, the components of reading focused in the three studies may give insights on the ways in which learning materials in statistics could be analyzed and improved for student reading to learn statistics. In the following, the detailed contributions of this study were deciphered with regard to the components of reading focused in the study: readers, texts, and the relationship between reader and texts.
1.5.1 Contribution from reader component
Reader component was the focus of study one, in which three essential contributions could be proposed to the field of statistics education research. Firstly, by exploring the different ways in which Indonesian pre-service EFL teachers’ value on the learning of statistics on the basis of motivation theory of task value (Eccles et al., 1983; Eccles
& Wigfield, 2002), this study sheds light on the elaboration of this theory, more particularly for statistics learning.
Secondly, Indonesian EFL preservice teachers’ conceptions of statistics which were characterized and compared to previous related studies in different cultures has extended the studies in this field. In addition, relationships between these students’
conceptions of statistics and their values on learning statistics were explored.
Acknowledging students’ conceptions of statistics, values on learning statistics, and the relationships between the two can shed some lights on the ways in which learning materials for these students should be designed, since students’ characteristics need to be taken into account when designing teaching materials for students learning statistics. For instances, if there were students having limited conceptions of statistics and tended to have less or no positive values on learning it, learning materials emphasizing on conceptual understanding rather than relying heavily on formulas would be more effective for student learning; it was also shown by (Harwell et al.,
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1996) that statistics texts having low mathematical level are more readable, easy for students to understand and follow.
Thirdly, an instrument for measuring conceptions of statistics has been developed and validated. Although the importance of measuring students’
conceptions of statistics has been suggested, including that for testing the efficacy of a teaching design and that with regard to its relation to other constructs such as attitudes toward statistics (Gal et al., 1997; Schau, Stevens, Dauphinee, & Vecchio, 1995), instruments for measuring conceptions of statistics have not been found in literature until recently. Some studies have used a phenomenographic approach to derive conception categories (e.g., Gordon, 2004; Petocz & Reid, 2005; Reid &
Petocz, 2002; Yang, 2014), but the lengthy process of analysis involved in this approach makes its use impractical where large number of participants are involved.
The conceptions of statistics instrument (CSI) resulted in this study provides a useful tool for statistics teachers and researchers who aim at efficiently obtaining information about students’ conceptions of statistics.
1.5.2 Contributions from the text component
Text component was the focus on study two, which consisted of the development of an analytical framework and textbook analysis. Three main contributions could be offered to literature from the framework development. First, by developing an analytical framework for analyzing the accessibility of statistics texts, the study not only enriched the lack of analytical framework in current statistics education literature, but also extended the literature on accessibility text. Text accessibility is a broader concept of text readability since it also considers the content and the intended reader instead of merely relying on the surface features of the text and the quality of writing style as in the readability analysis (Gunning, 2003). The five attributes of text accessibility proposed by McTigue and Slough (2010) in science texts were adopted
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in this study, which may contribute to the extension of the accessibility attributes of science texts into statistics texts.
Second, the analytical framework proposed in this study can be operationalized by teachers or researchers in statistics education to compare different versions of statistics textbooks with regard to the accessibility attributes. Besides, it can contribute on statistics teaching since it can identify the features should be possessed by learning materials or textbooks for learning statistics through reading to particular students.
Third, although the framework in this study is specifically assigned for statistics texts, it is not restricted for further expansion in other mathematics topics. For instance, when geometry is taken as the content to be analyzed, the components for each accessibility attribute can be modified and elaborated by referring to the levels of geometric thinking (Van Hiele, 1986) and cognitive processes and reasoning in learning geometry (Duval, 1995, 1998).
On the other hand, the textbook analysis conducted in this study may contribute to the lack of text analysis in current literature in statistics education, more specifically for college level. In addition, analyzing statistics textbooks by using the accessibility framework can reveal not only the strengths and weakness of the textbooks for particular readers to comprehend, but also to what extent the content knowledge of statistics is presented in the textbooks.
1.5.3 Contributions from the relationship of reader and text
Relationship between reader and text was the focus of study three, in which the effects of different presentations related to the accessibility attribute of integration of verbal and visual information on reading comprehension were explored. There were two main contributions provided by this study. First, since such study has not been explored in current research, it can enrich the literature on the comprehension of
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statistics texts and graphs. There have been studies on reasoning distribution with boxplots (Pfannkuch, 2006; Reading & Reid, 2006), but none concerning on the relation of different boxplot presentations on student reading comprehension. There have been also studies exploring graph comprehension (e.g., delMas, Garfield, &
Ooms, 2005; Shah & Hoeffner, 2002), but none specifically focusing on boxplots in college statistics. Second, the two variables modified in designing the different versions of reading materials were related to the one of accessibility attribute of statistics texts proposed in the analytical framework in this study. There are some studies focusing on the effects of modifying worked examples (Paas, 1992) or the structure of graph presentations, including boxplots (Bakker & Gravemeijer, 2004;
Lem et al., 2015), on students’ comprehension, but none focusing on modifying types of verbal information provided in the visual and the sequence of verbal and visual information as in the present study.