The Study on Elementary Male and Female Students' Abilities to Construct and Interpret Graphs Based on Their Spatial Abilities and Science Process Skills

초등학교 남.녀 학생들의 공간 능력 및 과학 탐구 능력에 따른 그래프 작성 및 해석 능력에 관한 연구

This study was to examine elementary male and female students' spatial abilities, science process skills, and graph construction and interpretation abilities in order to understand the effect that their spatial abilities and science process skills would have on their graph abilities. To conduct this study, total 12 classes of 435 pupils, 6 classes each from grades 5 and 6 in elementary schools were selected for subjects. The number of male student was 207 and that of female one was 228 of them. And previous test papers of spatial abilities, of science process abilities, and of graph abilities were retouched and updated for reuse in new tests. The results of this study are briefed as follows: Firstly, when spatial abilities for male and female group were compared, female group showed a little higher rate of correct answering than male, but not providing statistically significant gap. Secondly, the science process skill tests revealed basic process skills of both groups were more excellent than their integrated process skills, while female group was found to have more correct answers than male, all of which were proving statistical distinction. Thirdly, of graphing skills for two groups, the graph interpretation skills turned out to be better than the graph construction skills, with female group scoring higher than male and with meaningful difference. Fourthly, both between spatial abilities and graph abilities, and between science process skills and graph abilities, static correlations existed with statistical meaning. In other words, those with higher spatial abilities or science process skills were to do better in constructing and interpreting graphs.