The Identification of Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers’ Statistical Reasoning on Descriptive Statistics

Abstract

Statistics is one of the disciplines used in solving problems that are always present in everyday life matter. Based on its function, statistics is divided into two types; they are descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics is the basis of statistical knowledge that students need to master, but in reality students have difficulties in learning statistics. One of the causes of these problems is the learning conducted by the teacher. Therefore, pre-service mathematics teacher need to have statistical reasoning in order to carry out a structured learning for students. The purpose of this study is to identify the statistical reasoning of pre-service mathematics teacher on Descriptive Statistics. The method used in this study is a qualitative method where the research subjects were taking basic statistics courses. Data collection was done by mean of tests, interviews and study documents. The results showed that only less than 50% of students who mastered the statistical reasoning on every aspect and on descriptive statistics. The cause of the lack of statistical reasoning on descriptive statistics is the students have low mathematical ability and the students' understanding of the basic concepts of descriptive statistics is not comprehensive