Investigating Students’ Difficulties in Understanding Confidence Intervals in Linear Regression Models

  • Authors

    • Nor Rashidah Paujah @ Ismail
    • Fadzilah Abdol Razak
    • Norhayati Baharun
    2018-12-09
    https://doi.org/10.14419/ijet.v7i4.33.23485
  • confidence interval, regression slope, regression model, students’ difficulties.

  • How do tertiary students perform when finding confidence intervals of linear regression models? Do they have strong understanding on how to compute the interval and provide good explanation on the interval obtained? To answer these questions, 197 answer scripts were examined to investigate students’ ability to calculate the confidence interval of the regression slope and their ability to make comprehensive interpretation afterwards. It was found that only 48% of the students managed to compute the confidence interval correctly. The errors made by most of the students were caused by the failure to identify the correct degrees of freedom and the failure to evaluate the correct value of the standard error of the slope. Of those who were able to compute the correct values, the percentage that were able to give complete and correct interpretation dropped to only 7.1%. 68.5% of them provided incorrect interpretations which showed their inability to understand the concept of regression slope. It is hoped that this study will give some ideas to educators in providing better understanding on computing and interpreting the confidence interval among students.

     

     

  • References

    1. [1] Finch S, & Cumming G (2008), Putting research in context: Understanding confidence intervals from one or more studies. Journal of Pediatric Psychology 34(9), 903-916.

      [2] Andrade L & Fernánde F (2016), Interpretation of confidence interval facing the conflict. Universal Journal of Educational Research 4(12), 2687-2700.

      [3] Kutner MH, Nachtsheim C & Neter J (2004), Applied linear regression models. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

      [4] Canal GY & Gutiérrez RB (2010), The confidence intervals: A difficult matter, even for experts. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Teaching Statistics, pp. 1-4.

      [5] Reaburn R (2014), Students' understanding of confidence intervals. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Teaching Statistics, pp. 1-4.

      [6] Sim J & Reid N (1999), Statistical inference by confidence intervals: Issues of interpretation and utilization. Physical Therapy 79(2), 186-195.

      [7] Fidler F, & Cumming G (2005), Teaching confidence intervals: Problems and potential solutions. Proceedings of the 55th International Statistics Institute Session, pp. 1-5.

      [8] DelMas RC (2002), Statistical literacy, reasoning, and learning: A commentary. Journal of Statistics Education 10(3), 1-11.

      [9] Andrade L, Fernández F & Ãlvarez I (2014), Fostering changes in confidence intervals interpretation. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Teaching Statistics, pp. 1-4.

      [10] Henriques A (2016), Students’ difficulties in understanding of confidence intervals. In D. Ben-Zvi, & K. Makar (Eds.), Teaching and Learning of Statistics: International Perspectives. Basel: Springer International Publishing, pp. 129–138.

      [11] Callaert H (2007), Understanding confidence intervals. Working Group 5. Stochastic Thinking, pp. 685-692.

      [12] Holte JM (2003), Teaching confidence intervals. Proceedings of the NCS-MAA Spring Meeting, pp. 1-6.

      [13] Fadzilah AR, Baharun N, Deraman NA & Ismail NRP (2017), Assessing students’ abilities in interpreting the correlation and regression analysis. Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences 9(9S), 644-661.

  • Downloads

  • How to Cite

    Rashidah Paujah @ Ismail, N., Abdol Razak, F., & Baharun, N. (2018). Investigating Students’ Difficulties in Understanding Confidence Intervals in Linear Regression Models. International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7(4.33), 60-64. https://doi.org/10.14419/ijet.v7i4.33.23485