PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS OF OUTLIERS IN STATISTICAL GRAPHS

Abstract

Statistical graphs are often used by mass media to convey information to the community. Hence, it is a requirement for pupils in school to understand and apply various statistical skills to help them interpret the statistical graph. Teachers must play a very important role in ensuring that the student understands and are able to interpret various types of statistical graphs by applying an appropriate statistical skill. However, an outlier in a set of data always causes problems to the graph reader. An outlier can cause serious problems in statistical analyses. An outlier lies at an abnormal distance from other values in a random sample from a population. Therefore, this study looked at how prospective Mathematics teachers interpreted and build their perceptions towards an outlier in two types of statistical graphs by using an in-depth interview with all of the participants of this study. There were two types of statistical graphs used in this study, which are frequency table and a bar chart. Based on the findings obtained from this study, five prospective teachers involved in this study agreed that the outlier had various effects on the distribution of data for the entire data represented by the frequency table. This issue will be discussed in detail in this report. Hopefully, the findings from this study will give a clear description on how far the participants of this study perceived the role and effects of outliers in a set of data.