Guidelines for Assessing Statistical Literacy at the Secondary School Level

Abstract

Statistical literacy (SL) is an essential skill for citizens in an information-driven era. The ultimate goal of SL is to be cognizant of the statistical information found in both private and public contexts. SL includes important components such as knowledge of statistics, context, and mathematics. Therefore, assessing SL involves more than simply checking for right or wrong answers. The objective of this article was to present the concept of SL assessment. The main points of the article include: 1) SL was the ability to interpret, critically evaluating statistical information and discussing or communicating the opinions to argue or support statistical conclusions, and lead to decisions regarding personal and public matters 2) the assessment of SL for students based on three hierarchical levels of construct: understanding basic statistical terminology; understanding statistical terminology as it appears in context, and the ability to question claims made in context without proper statistical justification, classify the level of SL into 6 levels from the lowest level to the highest level, namely the idiosyncratic, informal, inconsistent, consistent non-critical, critical, and critical mathematical level and 3) the using a test item to classify the 6 levels of SL among 35 Matthayomsuksa 3 students and 28 Matthayomsuksa 6 students, totaling 63 students. The findings indicate that it is possible to select test items consistent with the critical mathematical level and create criteria based on behavioral indicators for each level of SL.