Developing a Mobile Application to Improve the Levels of Statistical Literacy among Graduate Students

Enes Abdurrahman Bilgin

Abstract


In today’s world, educated individuals are expected to understand basic statistical concepts and interpret statistical messages. For this reason, despite the undeniable importance of statistical literacy in the educational process, studies on undergraduate and postgraduate students in practice reveal that students have difficulties in determining the data structure, choosing the appropriate test for the purpose, and interpreting the findings correctly. Similar studies indicate that steps should be taken in many ways to overcome such difficulties. When the respective literature is viewed, it is understood that the use of software packages in teaching has many disadvantages such as being complex, being expensive and not being compatible with mobile devices, therefore, tech-supported teaching materials suitable for the level of students, in other words, instructional software is needed. Hence, it was aimed in this study to design a mobile teaching software for the development of advanced statistical literacy skills, which are often needed in the scientific research process. For this purpose, the first type of development method, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was preferred in the research. At the end of the research process, a free mobile teaching software program was developed that can be used in the teaching of statistical concepts at the postgraduate level and can perform statistical analysis. The alternatives offered by the application developed as a result of the research in response to the needs in the literature were examined. Additionally, the application was published via Google Play Store and was made available for users for a period of one year to receive evaluations, and at the end of this period, it was downloaded by users from dozens of various countries. It has been observed that the application, which has been downloaded approximately 40 thousand times in the last six months and reached 16 thousand users, received 84.6% positive scores (4.23). It is estimated that the application, which was developed as a result of the process, will contribute to the literature in terms of statistical literacy.

Keywords


Statistical Literacy, Teaching Software, Designing and Developing

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.9n.4p.113

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