USING RASCH ANALYSIS TO EXPLORE WHAT STUDENTS LEARN ABOUT PROBABILITY CONCEPTS

Students’ understanding of probability concepts have been investigated from various different perspectives. This study was set out to investigate perceived understanding of probability concepts of forty-four students from the STAT131 Understanding Uncertainty and Variation course at the University of Wollongong, NSW. Rasch measurement which is based on a probabilistic model was used to identify concepts that students find easy, moderate and difficult to understand.  Data were captured from the e-learning Moodle platform where students provided their responses through an on-line quiz. As illustrated in the Rasch map, 96% of the students could understand about sample space, simple events, mutually exclusive events and tree diagram while 67% of the students found concepts of conditional and independent events rather easy to understand.Keywords: Perceived Understanding, Probability Concepts, Rasch Measurement Model DOI: dx.doi.org/10.22342/jme.61.

Determinants of Subjective Well-Being: A Systematic Review

In recent years, there has been increasing in number of research focusing on subjective well-being issues in many countries all over the world. Subjective well-being concerning with people happiness and overall life satisfaction towards their own day-to-day life experience. This systematic review is conducted to explore and highlight the determinants of subjective well-being on 33 articles obtained from academic search engines and online databases which are Google Scholar, ScienceDirect and Scopus within a period from September 2017 until January 2018. From the review, it was found that beside personality factors, health and religion, the socio-economic attributes such as income, financial and employment status are the most focusing determinants of subjective well-being among the society

Developing a thinking skills assessment tool to evaluate students in institutions of higher learning / Parmjit Singh … [et al.]

This study is premised on the contention that there is a lack of appropriate screening methods and tools to ensure the quality of graduating university students which is ironic considering the intensity of the screening mechanisms in place select and sanction entry to the university. Other than academic achievements, no other forms of formal screening are practiced and thus, in due course, results in the massification of undesirable fresh graduates with low employability capabilities flooding the job market. At the outset, it must be established that the unemployment concern has long been haunting Malaysian fresh graduates in spite the fact that it is no longer something new to the Malaysian context. By the wake of 2006, for example, 20,217 unemployed graduates registered with the Malaysian Ministry of Human Resources' Career Assistance Program to aid them find suitable employment. (Ministry of Human Resources, 2009). Even as recent as late 2011, 40,000 graduates remain jobless, having to resort to part time, freelance, and odd jobs to sustain their living conditions (Bernama, Education Transformation Needful, 2012). The predicament is clear and neither the government nor the employers are holding back the truth: many of the graduates are simply unwanted. The usage of the word unwanted is most appropriate here, as the lack of job opportunities is not the primary reason for such a disturbing trend of unemployment. The origin of the problem seems to point to the graduates themselves

The effects of attitudes towards statistics, perceived ability, learning practices and teaching practices on students’ performance in statistics: a review

This paper reviews the literature related to the teaching and learning of statistics and highlights the following variables affecting students’ performance in statistics: students’ attitudes towards statistics, students’ perceived ability in statistics, instructors’ teaching practices and students’ learning practices. These variables have been chosen as these variables come from the self (student and teacher) where if self is well directed, teaching and learning becomes less complex and understanding will easily be established. Seeking knowledge has been greatly emphasized in Islam. The teaching and learning of statistics is becoming an increasingly important issue in statistical education. One pressing issue is how to continuously improve the teaching and learning of statistics at the tertiary level. Given its importance for the development of statistical literacy, statistical education researchers have attempted to investigate factors that relate to students’ learning outcomes in statistics and these researches have shown that a number of factors are indeed associated with student performance in statistics. The Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) said: “The seeking of knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim”.2 And the civilization of Muslims has been based on lslam's emphasis on teaching and learning. © 2018, International Islamic University Malaysia. All rights reserved

Validation of Perceived Ability in Statistical concepts Questionnaire (PASQ) Based on Rasch Measurement Model

This paper describes the process of assessing the unidimensionality and validity of the Perceived Ability in Statistical Concepts Questionnaire (PASQ) based on the Rasch Measurement Model. Students’ perceived ability was measured by a self-developed 30 PASQ items of Likert-scale format comprises of concepts on types of data (6 items), graphical representations of distributions (8 items), measures of central tendency (8 items), and measures of variability (8 items). The process of assessing the validity of PASQ involved a collection of data from 416 students at four institutions of higher learning in Malaysia where the measurement of construct validity for the overall PASQ and its subscales were established using Winsteps 3.68.2. Various Rasch measurement tools were utilized to demonstrate the true unidimensionality and validity measure of the PASQ and in meeting the needs of the Rasch measurement model. The findings show that the validity and unidimensionality of PASQ can be truly established and can satisfy the characteristics of the Rasch measurement model

Using Rasch analysis to explore what students learn about probability concept

Students’ understanding of probability concepts have been investigated from various different perspectives. This study was set out to investigate perceived understanding of probability concepts of forty-four students from the STAT131 Understanding Uncertainty and Variation course at the University of Wollongong, NSW. Rasch measurement which is based on a probabilistic model was used to identify concepts that students find easy, moderate and difficult to understand. Data were captured from the e-learning Moodle platform where students provided their responses through an on-line quiz. As illustrated in the Rasch map, 96% of the students could understand about sample space, simple events, mutually exclusive events and tree diagram while 67% of the students found concepts of conditional and independent events rather easy to understand

Using Rasch Analysis To Explore What Students Learn About Probability Concepts

Students’ understanding of probability concepts have been investigated from various different perspectives. This study was set out to investigate perceived understanding of probability concepts of forty-four students from the STAT131 Understanding Uncertainty and Variation course at the University of Wollongong, NSW. Rasch measurement which is based on a probabilistic model was used to identify concepts that students find easy, moderate and difficult to understand. Data were captured from the e-learning Moodle platform where students provided their responses through an on-line quiz. As illustrated in the Rasch map, 96% of the students could understand about sample space, simple events, mutually exclusive events and tree diagram while 67% of the students found concepts of conditional and independent events rather easy to understand

Homogeneous climate divisions for Peninsular Malaysia

Classification of Peninsular Malaysia was delineated by integrating in-situ temperature elements data and Geographical Information System (GIS) raster data. The principal component (PC) analysis was applied to long-term mean monthly temperature elements data for monsoon seasons. The first three principal components were chosen to be statistically significant accounted for 96.5% of the variability in the 27 variables. These three components are related to the mean monthly variation in minimum temperature during monsoon season (first PC) the mean monthly variation in maximum and the mean temperature in southwest monsoon (second PC) and the mean monthly variation in maximum temperature during northeast monsoon (third PC). Cluster analyes were applied to create clusters of meteorological stations of which six classes were formed. To determine cluster boundaries interpolation analysis was applied to generate GIS raster data of factor scores. The supervised classification analysis was then performed to the generated GIS factor data. The result of a maximum likelihood classification produced three clusters when summarized by districts. Final classification results of climate divisions show rational climate regionalization that reveals control on temperature. The use of factor score GIS raster data effectively assists the generation of meteorological station clusters grouped using only in-situ data. © 2011 Lavoisier SAS. All rights reserved