Regularities in the automated construction of statistical graphs by engineering students

Abstract

How to achieve visual reasoning is a problem in the teaching of statistics, which is centered on the use of graphs for the construction of which computer programs are of great help. Many efforts have been made in this direction, but difficulties persist and manifest themselves in many different ways. For this reason, one of the tasks of research in didactics of statistics is to describe students’ errors and successes in this constructive process in order to understand and improve learning.  The objective of this work is to show the results of a study carried out with students of Automatic Control Engineering, aimed at finding regularities in the construction of statistical graphs using computerized programs. The methodology was adjusted to the quantitative approach and a non-experimental transectional and descriptive design with a single measurement was applied. As a result, the types of statistical graphs most used by students were identified, as well as the errors and achievements, and similarity was found with the results achieved by other researchers in this subject.