Do students understand the Cartesian graphs used in science textbooks?

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a research study on high school and B.Sc (Chemistry) students’ performance in nine interpreting tasks of Cartesian graphs in high school Chemistry books. The study shows that participants did not find it difficult to perform tasks involving identification of variables, data reading, and classification of relationships between variables. Nonetheless, participants encountered greater difficulty while carrying out tasks such as identification of variable relationships, recognition of terms in the graph, and elaboration of conclusions, explanations and predictions from graphical information. In addition, the study also found that increased task complexity and some characteristics of the graphs (e.g. curved lines or their instrumental use in practical assignments), made the execution of tasks more difficult to participants.