Classification of Requested Tasks in Statistical Representations Present in high school textbooks.

Abstract

The research analyzed the tasks present in high school math textbooks of three publishers used in Colombia. The classification was oriented from the cognitive demand and taxonomy of Bloom that provided the categorization of actions demands. For them, a descriptive and interpretive documentary research based on content analysis was carried out with a sample taken intentionally. Twenty-four textbooks were examined in complete collections from sixth to eleventh grade and from three publishers (SM, Santillana, Libros & Libros). The activities were chosen that involve tables and statistical graphs in their structure or for their resolution consolidating a collection of 823 activities. A log grid is applied for each activity to analyze items, requested tasks and cognitive demand. It was found that homework progresses progressively throughout school grades with demands that begin with reading the chart or graph, calculating, completing, constructing until arguing. In higher grades it is requested to evaluate information and invent problems that relate the data with situations proposed by the student in the development of the situation. It is concluded that the most required task is to read calculate with 45.9% classified in the category of low cognitive demand. It was also found that the argumentation task only reaches a 5.3% representativeness of the total analyzed tasks and is the task with the highest percentage in the category of high demand.