An Investigation of 8th Grade Students' Mathematical Language Skills in Statistics Through Structural Equitation Model

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of mathematical reading comprehension skill, writing skill and concept knowledge of eight-grade students on their mathematical language skill about the statistics concept. The predictive correlational research design, one of the quantitative research methods, was applied in the study. The research was conducted with 285 eighth-grade students from 7 public secondary schools located in a medium-sized city of Eastern Anatolian Region of Turkey in the first semester of the academic year 2012-2013. Four data collection instruments (i.e., mathematical language test, mathematical comprehension test, mathematical writing form and mathematical concept knowledge form) about the concepts such as arithmetic mean, mode, median and openness within the scope of statistics course were developed and used in the study. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used in the data analyses processes. The findings showed that though mathematical comprehension skill had a meaningful effect on the mathematical language, mathematical writing skill did not have a meaningful effect on mathematical language. The findings also showed that mathematical concept knowledge had a considerably high effect on the skills of mathematical comprehension and writing.