Students’ Understanding of Factors that Affect the Standard Deviation

Robert C. delMas, University of Minnesota, delma001@umn.edu

Yan Liu, Vanderbilt University, yan.liu@vanderbilt.edu

ABSTRACT

This study investigates students’ understanding of the concept of the standard deviation, in
particular, their understanding of the factors that affect, and how they affect, the size of the
standard deviation. Twelve students enrolled in an introductory statistics course participated in
the study. The interview activities engaged students in arranging a number of bars of different
frequencies on a number line to produce the largest and smallest standard deviation, and to
compare the size of the standard deviation of two distributions. Initial analysis identified
rules/strategies that students used to construct their arrangements and make comparisons. The
paper discusses these distinctive rules and how they are affected by task characteristics and types
of interviewer questions.

Keywords: conceptual understanding, strategies, standard deviation, variability, interviews

1. INTRODUCTION

Garfield and Ahlgren (1988) argued that little research has been done on how students come
to understand statistical concepts. Mathews and Clark (1997) interviewed eight college students
enrolled in an introductory statistics course and found that while all were highly successful in the
course, none of the students demonstrated a conceptual understanding of the introductory level
material. One area of statistical instruction that has received very little attention is students’
understanding of variability (Reading & Shaughnessy, in press). This is the case despite the
central role the concept plays in statistics and an apparent conceptual gap in students’
understanding of variability (Shaughnessy, 1997). Investigations into students’ understanding of
sampling variability (Reading & Shaughnessy, in press) and instructional approaches that affect
this understanding (Meletiou-Mavrotheris & Lee, 2002) have been conducted. Reading and
Shaughnessy (in press) present evidence of different levels of sophistication in elementary and
secondary students’ reasoning about sample variation. Meletiou-Mavrotheris and Lee (2002)
found that an instructional design that emphasized statistical variation and statistical process
produced a better understanding of the standard deviation, among other concepts, in a group of
undergraduates. Students in the study saw the standard deviation as a measure of spread that
represented a type of average deviation from the mean. They were also better at taking both
center and spread into account when reasoning about sampling variation in comparison to
findings from earlier studies (e.g., Shaughnessy, Watson, Moritz, & Reading, 1999). However,
little is known about students understanding of measures of variation, how this understanding
develops, or how students might apply their understanding to make comparisons of variation
between two or more distributions. The latter ability represents an important aspect of statistical
literacy that is needed both for interpreting research results and for everyday decision making.
The main purpose of the current study is to gain a better picture of the different ways that
students look at the standard deviation as this concept develops at the beginning of an
introductory statistics course.

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 2. A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS OF STANDARD DEVIATION

In order to have a working understanding of standard deviation, a student needs to coordinate

several underlying statistical concepts from which the concept of standard deviation is
constructed. Distribution is one of these fundamental concepts. The students in the current
study worked with distributions of discrete variables, so the concept of distribution in this paper
will be described in those terms. Essentially, an understanding of distribution requires a
conception of a variable and the accumulating frequency of its possible values. Therefore, a
visual or graphical understanding of distribution involves the coordination of values and density.
Such coordination allows the student to consider a question such as “What proportion of the
distribution lies inclusively between the values of 4 and 7?”
A second fundamental concept is that of mean, defined as the arithmetic average. A
conceptual understanding of the standard deviation requires more than the knowledge of a
procedure for calculating the mean, either in procedural or symbolic form (e.g., Sx/n). Imagery
that metaphorically considers the mean to behave like a self-adjusting fulcrum on a balance
comes close to the necessary conception. Such imagery supports the development of the third
foundational concept, deviation from the mean. It is through the coordination of distribution (as
represented by the coordination of value and frequency) and deviation (as distance from the
mean) that a dynamic conception of the standard deviation is derived as the relative density of
values about the mean. A student who possesses this understanding can anticipate how the
possible values of a variable and their respective frequencies will, independently and jointly,
affect the standard deviation. An illustration from the computer program used in the present
study may help to clarify this conception.
Figure 1a presents a distribution of a variable along the number line. Each bar is composed of
a certain number of rectangles each of which represents one datum. The location of a bar
indicates the value of all the data represented by the bar (e.g., all the data in the red [tallest] bar
have a value of 4). The point location of the mean is indicated by a blue arrow along the number
line, and the standard deviation is reported and represented by a black horizontal bar as a
distance below and above the mean. In addition, the deviation from the mean of each value is
printed within each rectangle. Therefore, the program provides the potential to see how a change
in value (i.e., bar location) simultaneously affects the mean, deviations from the mean, and the
standard deviation.
For example, a student can be asked to anticipate how the mean, deviations, and standard
deviation are affected by changing the value of the green (shortest) bar from 2 to 1. A student
with a fully coordinated conception of standard deviation can anticipate that moving the green
bar (the leftmost bar) to a value of 1 shifts the mean to a slightly lower value. In addition, all
deviations from the mean will change simultaneously. The student would anticipate the
deviations of the red and blue bars (representing frequencies of 8 and 6, respectively) from the
mean to increase, the deviations of the yellow bar to decrease, and possibly the deviations of the
green bar to increase. Since the student is able to coordinate density (or frequency) with
deviation, she would realize that the larger frequencies of the red and blue bar coupled with
increases in deviation are likely to outweigh the few values in the yellow bar that had a slight
decrease in deviation. This would result in a larger density of values away from the mean and,
therefore, an increase in the standard deviation. Figure 1b illustrates the results of actually
moving the green bar from a value of 2 to a value of 1.

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 a. b.

Figure 1. A graphic representation of standard deviation and its related concepts.

A student who understands such dynamic relationships would be able to reliably compare the
standard deviation of two distributions. For example, consider the pairs of graphs presented in
Table 2. Knowing only the location of the mean in both distributions, a student might reason that
the graph on the left in pair 2 has a larger standard deviation because there is a lower density of
values around the mean. The same conception would lead to the conclusion that the graph on the
right in pair 4 has the larger standard deviation.

3. RESEARCH DESIGN

3.1 SETTING

The subject pool was comprised of thirteen students registered in an introductory statistics
course at a large Midwest research university during the spring 2003 term. At the time of the
interview the course had introduced students to distributions, methods for constructing graphs
(stem-and-leaf plots, dot plots, histograms, and box plots), measures of center (mode, median,
and mean), and measures of variability (range, interquartile range, and the standard deviation).
With respect to the standard deviation, students had participated in an activity exploring factors
that affect the size of the standard deviation. Students compared nine pairs of graphs to
determine which one had a larger standard deviation. Students worked together, identified
characteristics of the graphs thought to affect the size of the standard deviation, recorded their
predictions, and received feedback. The goal of the activity was to help students see that the size
of the standard deviation is related to how values are spread out and away from the mean, the
only factor associated with the correct choice across all nine pairs.

3.2 NATURE OF THE INTERVIEW

Each student participated in a one-hour interview. During the interview, a student interacted
with a computer program. A digital video camera was used to capture a student’s utterances and
actions. The computer program wrote data to a separate file to capture students’ actions and
choices. A separate record in the file represented each movement or choice with each record
time stamped so that it could be coordinated with the digital video recording.
The interview had two parts. Part 1 was designed to help students learn about factors that
affect the standard deviation. Each student was presented with five different sets of bars (see

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Table 1), one set at a time, and asked to arrange the bars in a graphing area to accomplish a
specified task. The number of bars ranged from two in the first set to five in the last. The first
task asked a student to find an arrangement that produced the largest possible value for the
standard deviation, followed by the task of finding a second arrangement that also produced this
same value (see Figure 2). The third through fifth tasks required three different arrangements
that each produced the smallest value for the standard deviation. Each set of bars along with the
accompanying tasks was referred to as a “game”. Each student played five games during Part 1.
A button labeled ‘CHECK’ was provided to determine if an arrangement met the stated
criterion for a task. Before checking, students were asked to describe what they were thinking,
doing, or attending to. In addition, the investigator (the first author) asked students to state why
they thought an arrangement did or did not meet a criterion once feedback was received. The
investigator also posed questions or created additional bar arrangements when a statement
appeared to reveal a misunderstanding or to explore the stability of students’ reasoning.
The interviewer attempted to promote two instructional goals during Part 1. The first goal
was to help students develop a mean-centered understanding of how deviation from the mean
and frequency combined to determine the value of the standard deviation. The second goal was
to promote an understanding of how the shape of a distribution is related to the size of the
standard deviation (e.g., given the same set of bars, a bell-shaped distribution tends to have a
smaller standard deviation than a skewed distribution). When students seemed to have difficulty
finding an arrangement to meet a task criterion, or when they appeared to be moving in the
direction of one of the goals, the interviewer used several approaches to support the development
of one of the understandings. A mean-centered conception of the standard deviation was
promoted by drawing attention to the values of the deviations, by asking students how
hypothetical movements of the bars would affect the mean, and by the interviewer modeling
reasoning of how the distribution of deviation densities affected the values of the mean and
standard deviation. The second goal was supported by asking students to predict how the mean
and standard deviation would be affected by bell-shaped and skewed arrangements of the same
bar sets or by asking students to judge the extent to which a distribution was bell-shaped,
whether the bars could be arranged to produce a more bell-shaped (or symmetric) distribution,
and drawing student attention to the change in the standard deviation.
Part 2, the test phase, was designed to assess students’ understanding of factors that influence
the standard deviation. Students were asked to answer 10 test questions where each test
presented a pair of histograms (see Table 2). For each pair of histograms, the average and
standard deviation were displayed for the graph on the left, but only the average was displayed
for the graph on the right (see Figure 3). The students were asked to make judgments on whether
the standard deviation for the graph on the right was smaller than, larger than, or the same as the
graph on the left. Once a student made a judgment, the investigator asked the student to explain
his/her justification and reasoning. The student then clicked the CHECK button to check the
answer, at which time the program displayed the standard deviation for the graph on the right
and stated whether or not the answer was correct.

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Table 1

Bar sets for the five games with possible solutions

Game Bars Largest SD Smallest SD

1

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Table 2

Test items presented in the second part of the interview

1 6

2 7

3 8

4 9

5 10

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Figure 2. Example of Information Displayed by the Variability Game During Game 4 of Part 1.

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Figure 3. Example of Information Displayed by the Variability Game During Test 2 of Part 2.

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 4. FINDINGS

Twelve interviews have been transcribed and analyzed. We have identified several strategies
and rules that students use to accomplish the tasks for the five sets of bars. While some students
appear to start the interview with a fairly sophisticated understanding of factors that affect the
standard deviation and how these factors work together, most students have a very simple, rule
oriented approach. Brief descriptions of the various approaches are presented. Video and
transcript excerpts that illustrate each approach can be found in delMas and Liu (2003).

4.1 GENERAL STRATEGIES AND RULES

Students used several general approaches to make arrangements that produced either the
largest or the smallest standard deviation.

Mirror Image

The student would often create a mirror image of a distribution to produce a distribution with
the same standard deviation. Some students expressed this approach as “swapping” or
“switching” the position of the bars, while others stated that the arrangement was “flip-flopped”.
The student would state that since the bars were still as close together or as far apart as before
(either relative to each other or relative to the mean), the standard deviation should be the same.

Location

In this strategy, the student moved all the bars an equal distance, maintaining the same
relative arrangement and standard deviation. The student would note that the standard deviation
should be the same because the relative distances between the bars or from the mean were
maintained.

Mean in the Middle

The Mean in the Middle approach was indicated by a statement that the bars were arranged
so that the mean appeared to be somewhat in the middle of the distribution. This is an interesting
statement since the mean is technically always at the center of the density of the distribution.
However, this made more sense when coupled with strategies such as Far Away -Mean and
Balance that are described later. In these approaches a somewhat symmetric distribution was
produced, thereby placing “the mean in the middle”. This rule suggests a concept of deviation
where the student realizes that near equal amounts of values need to be positioned below and
above the mean to minimize or maximize the standard deviation.

Balance

Arranging the bars so that near equal amounts of values are placed above and below the
mean was taken as an indication of a Balance strategy. Typically, the bars were arranged in a
recognizable order; descending inward from the opposite extremes of the number scale to
produce the largest standard deviation, or descending outward from the mean to produce the
smallest standard deviation.

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4.2 LARGEST STANDARD DEVIATION: STRATEGIES AND RULES

For the first game, most students placed one bar at each of the extreme positions of the
number line to produce the largest standard deviation. The subsequent games with more than two
bars challenged students, revealing more details of the their thinking and strategies. In general,
the arrangements represented placing the bars far apart or having them spread out. The typical
order was to place the tallest bars at the extremes with subsequent bars placed so that heights
decreased toward the center of the distribution. Three general strategies were identified based on
students’ justifications for their arrangements.

Equally Spread Out

In the Equally Spread Out strategy, the student believed that the largest standard deviation
occurred when the bars were spread out across the entire range of the number line with equal
spacing between the bars. The Equally Spread Out strategy may have resulted from the in-class
activity described earlier. Students may have translated “spread out away from the mean” to
“equally spread out”. For example, with three bars, the student places one bar above a value of 0,
one above 9, and then places the third bar above 4 or 5 (see Figure 4). Some students using this
approach realized that the third bar could not be placed with equal distance between the lowest
and highest positions, so they would move the third bar back and forth between values of 4 and 5
to see which placement produced the larger standard deviation.
a. b.

Figure 4. Equally Spread Out arrangements for the largest standard deviation in Game 2.

Far Away –Values

Some students stated that an arrangement should produce the largest possible standard
deviation if the values are placed as far away from each other as possible. No mention was made
of distance (or deviation) from the mean in these statements. Examples from several students are
presented in Figure . (Did you mean to insert a figure here? If so, the figure number in the
remainder of the paper should change from x to x+2, otherwise, x+1. For now I’ll leave the
figure number unchanged.)

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Far Away –Mean

This rule is similar to Far Away-Values, except the student stated that the largest standard
deviation is obtained by placing the values as far away from the mean as possible. For example,
when using a Balance approach to produce the largest standard deviation, Alice stated “that way
they'd both be as far away from the mean as possible.” Carl provided a clear expression of this
rule in the first game, although he was not sure that it was entirely correct.

Well…um…what I know about standard deviation is, um, given a mean, the more
numbers away, the more numbers as far away as possible from the mean, is that
increases the standard deviation. So, I tried to make the mean, um, in between both of
them, and then have them as far away from the mean as possible. But I don’t, yeah, I
don’t know if that’s right or not, but, yeah.

Later, in Game 2, Carl tried to arrange three bars to produce the largest possible standard
deviation. He first used an Equally Spread Out approach (see Figure 5a) and then appeared
frustrated that it did not produce the largest standard deviation. The interviewer intervened,
trying to help him extend the Far Away – Mean rule he had used earlier to the new situation. Carl
then produced the graph in Figure 5b. When asked why this arrangement produced the largest
standard deviation, Carl stated “basically because I have the most amount of numbers possible
away from the mean. Um, because if I were…say I have two bars that are bigger than the one
smaller bar. If I were to switch these two around, the blue [frequency of 4] and the yellow
[frequency of 2], the standard deviation would be smaller then because there’s more of the
numbers closer to the mean.” Carl did not automatically apply the Far Away – Mean rule to the
three bar situation, but he readily accommodated the new situation into the scheme once it was
suggested that the rule was applicable.

a. b.

Figure 5. Carl’s arrangements for the largest standard deviation in Game 2.

4.3 SMALLEST STANDARD DEVIATION: STRATEGIES AND RULES

Nearly all of the students placed the bars next to each other in some arrangement to produce
the smallest possible standard deviation. There were several distinct rules that seemed to be
applied to these arrangements.

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Contiguous

Students who used this approach stated that they placed the bars next to each other, or as
close together as possible, to obtain the smallest standard deviation. There were three types of
order that the students used: no apparent order, ascending (see Figure 6a), or descending (see
Figure 6b), according to bar height. Mona initially produced the arrangement in Figure 5b for the
smallest standard deviation in Game 4. When asked why she thought this would produce the
smallest standard deviation, she responded: “OK, because um, I know to make it like, to make it,
the standard deviation lower, it has to be closer to the mean. And a lot of them have to be closer
to the mean. So, this one [the tallest bar] is right by the mean, almost.”

a. b.

Figure 6. Examples of Contiguous arrangements for the smallest standard deviation in Game 2.

Bell-Shaped

This approach typically appeared during the fourth and fifth games. While the arrangements
involved a contiguous placement of the bars, students stated that they were trying to produce a
symmetrical or bell-shaped arrangement. Except for Game 3, none of the bar sets provided for
the creation of a perfectly symmetrical distribution. The tallest bar was typically placed first,
perhaps to function as an anchor or central point. The other bars were placed to the left and right
of this central location. A few students were methodical in their placement, alternating the other
bars to the left and right of center in order of height. Others seemed to place a few of the tallest
bars to the left and right of center, and then checked the size of the standard deviation as they
tested out various arrangements.
Mona provides an example of the latter in Game 5. She seemed to use a Bell-Shaped
strategy when trying to come up with the smallest standard deviation, but she did not have a
method that reliably produced the most symmetric or bell-shaped arrangement of the five bars
(see Figure 6a). When justifying the arrangement in Figure 7a, she stated, “I think this is it
because we are saying, like it has to have sort of like a normal, normal shape, and this kind of
looks normal to me.” When the interviewer asked if Figure 6a was “as normal as you can make it
look,” Mona produced the arrangement in Figure 7b.

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 a. b.

Figure 7. Mona’s arrangements for the smallest standard deviation in Game 5.

The Bell-Shaped rule was also used to justify choices during the test phase. This rule did not
lead to a correct choice when the two graphs represented different numbers of values and bars,
such as the pair of distributions in Test 8.

More Bars in the Middle

Some students stated that one of the reasons the standard deviation would be the smallest was
because more values or the tallest bars were placed in the middle of the distribution or close to
the mean. This approach is similar to the Bell-Shaped approach, except that symmetry or bell-
shape is not identified as a guiding factor. Mona provided a More Bars in the Middle statement
in her Contiguous arrangement for the smallest deviation in Game 4 when she stated, “a lot of
them have to be closer to the mean.”
Nancy also used a More Bars in The Middle justification for her first smallest standard
deviation arrangement in Game 4. She started off with an arrangement that was near optimal (see
Figure 8a) and then decided to move the green and yellow bars to produce the graph in Figure
8b. Although the result was fairly symmetric and bell-shaped, she talked only about placing lots
of values close to the mean.

a. b.

Figure 8. Nancy’s graphs for the smallest standard deviation in Game 4.

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Tallest Bar in the Middle

A statement that the arrangement should produce the smallest standard deviation because the
tallest bar was in the middle indicated a Tallest Bar in the Middle approach. This was usually
associated with the second game that has three bars and may be a special case of More Bars in
the Middle. In Game 4, Troy believed he had an arrangement with the smallest possible value for
the standard deviation because he saw it as symmetrical and because the mean was below the
tallest bar (see Figure 9a). He learned that the distribution did not meet the criterion and, with
some trial and error, came up with a new distribution that did (see Figure 9b). When asked to
justify the latter arrangement, Troy said, “Uh, I mean if I tried this at first I thought it would be a,
not the lowest number I guess, so, um, but since the mean is more centered here…”

a. b.

Figure 9. Troy’s first and second attempts for the smallest standard deviation in Game 4.

Troy saw the mean as being more centered under the tallest (red) bar in Figure 9b, when
actually it appeared to be more centered in the first graph. Many of the students “saw” what they
were looking for or may have been describing a discernable difference between prior and current
distributions when trying to justify why a new arrangement met the criterion. Just having the
tallest bar in the middle or centered over the mean is not a sufficient condition for producing the
smallest standard deviation, and does not indicate a coordination of how deviation and frequency
affect the size of the standard deviation.

4.4 TEST PHASE STRATEGIES AND RULES

There were several strategies and rules that were stated as justifications primarily during the
test phase of the interview.

Range

The student stated that a distribution with a larger range would have a larger standard
deviation. This type of statement was seen most often during the test phase of the interview.
Alex provided an example when reasoning about Test 8. Alex first based his choice on the range
of the bars. He then considered other factors, but finally went back to the range as the deciding
factor, stating “I’m going to go with larger since there’s more of a spread between the

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two…there’s more of, there’s a larger range. This one has four bars for the range and this one has
seven bars.”

More Values

More Values thinking was represented by a statement that a distribution that had
more values relative to a second distribution would have a larger standard deviation. For
Test 10, Alice stated that “there’s more values, so it’s spreading it out more” when
describing the variation in the left-hand graph. As such, More Values may be part of the
Range rule. This was also suggested by Troy’s thinking during Test 10 where he
mentioned that the graph on the right had less bars, but seemed to focus more on the
relative spread of the bars: “Yeah, I guess, that one, yeah maybe it is smaller because it's
tighter. It's smaller numbers, and these are spread out, spread out more.”

4.5 AN IDIOSYNCRATIC RULE

Big Mean

Troy was the only student who initially believed that a distribution with a higher mean would
have a larger standard deviation. The first statement of this belief came in Game 1 after he found
an arrangement that produced the largest standard deviation: “I was thinking that if the mean
was, I knew the mean was going to be smaller. I thought that would make the standard deviation
smaller.”
Troy’s reasoning seemed to be primarily one of association: the mean gets lower, so the
standard deviation will get lower. While he appeared to have an understanding of how value and
frequency affect the mean, he had not coordinated these changes with changes in the standard
deviation. Even though Troy witnessed that the standard deviation did not change when he
produced a mirror image of the distribution, his belief that the size of the mean affects the
standard deviation persisted. After Troy found a distribution with the smallest standard deviation
in Game 1, he was not sure that moving the same arrangement to a new location would conserve
the value of the standard deviation. He did move the bars to higher values, then seemed surprised
to find that the standard deviation stayed the same: “Again I guess it's thinking that if the mean
goes up that the standard deviation goes up. But obviously that's not true a case.” Troy seemed
to have learned that the location of an arrangement did not affect the standard deviation, although
he did not appear to understand why at this point.

4.6 BASIC CONCEPTS

There are four basic concepts that students needed to coordinate in order to have a full
understanding of factors that affect the size of the standard deviation.

Frequency (F)

Students with an understanding of frequency indicated that the height of a bar represents a
frequency or the number of values at a particular position on the number line. Alex
demonstrated this understanding when reasoning in Game 2 about a distribution he created for

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the largest standard deviation. Alex stated, “I kind of figured that the two bars that had the higher
counts would have to be on the ends because there’s going to be, there’s more of, there’s more,
more, because they have more people, or more, of the, I mean there’s more counts on each end,
so there’s going to be more of, more leaning to that direction.”

Value (V)

Statements that the position of a bar represents a value along the number line were taken as
an indication that students distinguished the representation of value from frequency in the
distributions. An example comes from Alex in Game 1 after he created a mirror image of a
distribution that resulted in the largest standard deviation (see Figure 19). When asked why the
arrangement would produce the same value for the standard deviation, Alex replied, “Um, well
when I had the 9, when I had the 8 of the nines, it was actually on the other side. It was eight of
the zeros, and the mean was, the mean basically has changed, like, we cut it down the middle,
and it’s split, and it was on the other side, and it was closer to the count of eight.”

Mean (M)

A full conception of the mean requires the coordination of frequency and value such that the
student can predict the effects of adding values to a distribution, or assigning different values to
data. Students did not tend to spontaneously demonstrate this understanding. Statements about a
student’s conception of the mean usually followed a prompt by the interviewer. After Alex
created a graph for the largest standard deviation in Game 4 (see Figure 10), the interviewer
asked what would happen to the mean if the positions of the yellow (frequency of 5) and green
(frequency of 2) bars were switched. Alex responded, “The mean will move more towards the
higher numbers.”

Figure 10. Alex’s first arrangement for the largest standard deviation in Game 4.

Deviation (D)

Students made a variety of statements indicating some conception of the relative distance
between a value and the mean. Phrases such as “away from the mean” or “close to the mean”
were taken as evidence of this understanding. Statements of this concept did not usually appear
in isolation and tended to accompany explanations of why an arrangement produced the largest

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or smallest standard deviation. To justify why an arrangement produced the smallest standard
deviation, Carl stated “Because, putting all the numbers as close together as possible, you get,
um, you get the mean and the standard deviation, and since all the numbers are as close as they
can be to the mean, you’ll get the smallest standard deviation.” Here, we take “as close as they
can be to the mean” as evidence that Carl was considering the distance between the mean and the
values.

4.7 COORDINATED CONCEPTIONS

Transcripts were scanned for evidence that students were coordinating basic conceptions in
order to predict or justify why an arrangement would produce the largest or smallest value for the
standard deviation (Part 1), or why the standard deviation for one distribution would be smaller,
larger, or the same when compared to a second distribution (Part 2). Coordination refers to a
student’s ability to treat each concept as a dynamic entity and to consider the mutual effects of
changes in one entity on changes in another. Each code presented below starts with an upper case
“C” to indicate coordination of concepts followed by letters that identify the concepts that are
coordinated. The lower case letters “sd” are used to indicate that the effect of the coordination
on the size of the standard deviation is included as part of the coordinated conception.

C-MV

C-MV is indicated by knowing that the location of the mean is dependent on the value (or
location) represented by a bar, but not necessarily taking the frequency of the values into
consideration. This coordination represents a conceptual understanding of deviation (D). Nancy
demonstrated this understanding when she justified why a mirror image would produce the same
value for the standard deviation by stating “the mean is different, but they’re still the same
amount away from the mean, because it’s just switching them.”

C-MVF

When a bar is moved to a new location, a student with a C-MVF conception is able to
coordinate how both the new value and the frequency represented by the bar height affect the
mean. Alice provided an example of reasoning with this concept. She made the arrangement in
Figure 11 to obtain the largest standard deviation with the fourth set of bars in Part 1. The
interviewer asked Alice to consider what would happen if she changed the position of the gold
(frequency of 5) and green (frequency of 2) bars. She indicated that the mean “would get pulled
towards the gold and the red bar because there’s more frequency over there than on the other
two. Because they aren't pulling the mean that much more over.”

C-VFsd

Knowing that once the relative distances among bars are decided, that the absolute location
of the bars doesn’t affect the size of the standard deviation indicates a C-VFsd coordination.
This is essentially the concept behind the Location rule. Carl gave an example of this
coordination when justifying why an arrangement of the first set of bars results in the smallest
standard deviation, stating that “It doesn’t matter, really, um, it doesn’t really seem to matter

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what the values of the numbers are, as long as there’s, um, the same amount of the numbers as
squished together as possible, then you’re still going to get the standard deviation.”

Figure 11. Alice’s arrangement for the largest standard deviation in Game 4.

C-Dsd

This coordination of how the relative sizes of the deviations affect the standard deviation was
seen primarily during the test phase in Part 2, and only with the fifth and seventh test items.
Based on a student’s statements, we only know that he was considering the overall size of the
deviations from the mean when judging the relative sizes of the respective standard deviations.
In these items, frequency could be judged irrelevant given that the same bars are used in both
distributions and the same relative order is maintained. Typically the student refers to “gaps”,
“more gaps”, or “larger gaps”. For example, when justifying his choice for the relative size of
the graph on the right in Test 5, Carl stated “I’m definitely going to have to say smaller. The
gaps really throw off standard deviation. Because, then you have zero, then you have, like, kind
of like outliers, or gaps now. So, I’m definitely going to have to say that – Oh, well I’m sorry,
this one’s smaller.”

Jeff provided an example of a student who did not have this coordination for the same test
problem: “Uh, only, because the only reason I think they're going to be the same is they are all
arranged in the same position and, uh, they are the same distance, or not the same distance apart,
but the, you know, the space in between them is both equal. So I would think it would be the
same.”

C-DFsd

This concept represents the coordination of the four basic concepts with the size of the
standard deviation. A student would state how the standard deviation was affected by
considering the combined effects of changes in the deviation of values and the frequencies of the
deviations.
Carl demonstrated C-DFsd reasoning while answering some questions about the arrangement
he made for the second task in Game 4 (see Figure 12). The interviewer asked Carl if there was
any other arrangement that would produce the largest standard deviation. Carl responded, “I

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don’t really think so” but suggested switching the places of the yellow and green bars, although
he thought “it would still to be a little too small.” Carl made the switch, found that the standard
deviation was smaller, and switched the bars back. The interviewer asked why Carl thought the
arrangement produced a smaller standard deviation, and Carl responded that it was because the
mean moved toward bars with higher frequencies.

Figure 12. Carl’s second arrangement for the largest standard deviation in Game 4.

Alice provided another example of C-DFsd. Alice made the arrangement in Figure 13 to
produce the largest standard deviation in Game 2.

Figure 13. Alice’s arrangement for the largest standard deviation in Game 2.

The interviewer observed that Alice had moved the blue bar (frequency of 4) next to the red
bar (frequency of 6) at one point and asked what she had noticed. She stated that the standard
deviation became smaller. When asked why she thought this happened, Alice answered,
“Because, um, it's going to move, I think, um, the mean this way [towards the lower end of the
number scale]. Yeah. Towards, you know, where more of the values are. So then the deviation
there, for, it's going to be a deviation for more of the numbers are going to be smaller and then
there's just a few over here that are going to be further away.”
Alice knew that the location of the mean moved toward the larger mass of data, that this
caused the deviations in both the red bar and the blue bar to get smaller, which resulted in a
larger number of smaller deviations that were not counterbalanced by the two large deviations of
the yellow bar, with an overall outcome of a smaller deviation.

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4.8 TASK CHARACTERISTICS AND STUDENTS’ STRATEGIES

Table 3 presents counts of the different approaches that students presented evidence of using
or considering when arranging the bars to meet the criterion of Task 1 (largest standard
deviation) or the criterion in Task 3 (smallest standard deviation) in each game of Part 1. The
two bar set of the first game required only that students place the bars as far apart as possible to
produce the largest standard deviation, or that they place them next to each other to produce the
smallest standard deviation. As would be expected, most of the students either stated the Far
Away approach or the Contiguous approach for the respective criteria. Four of the twelve
students appeared to understand that the values needed to be placed so they were as far away
from the mean as possible, but most did not note this.
The three-bar set of the second game produced more revealing information regarding
students’ initial understanding of standard deviation. For the first task, slightly more than half of
the students produced an initial arrangement that qualified as the Equally Spread Out approach
where an attempt was made to evenly space the bars across the range of the number scale. Once
these students found that the Equally Spread Out arrangement did not produce the largest
standard deviation, they typically engaged in moving the bars around and observing the standard
deviation value, what we are referring to as a “guess and check” approach. When students
finally found a qualifying arrangement for the largest standard deviation, they tended to present
justifications along the lines of the Far Away or Balance rules.
A contiguous arrangement was most often the first arrangement attempted by a student to
produce the smallest standard deviation, but, surprisingly, three-fourths of the students first made
an arrangement where the bars were in ascending or descending order instead of placing the
tallest bar in the middle. In justifying the ordered arrangements, some students thought that the
order did not matter (and may have been using a preferred organizational approach), some stated
that the order was necessary to produce the smallest standard deviation, and others claimed they
first placed them in order just to have them together and then they were going to test out different
arrangements. After completing the first two tasks for the largest standard deviation, the bars
were not in either ascending or descending order so that students using the latter justification for
an ordered contiguous arrangement did not come about the arrangement by simply sliding the
bars over to each other. When students did finally find a qualifying arrangement, it appeared to
happen primarily a guess and check process. Some students offered the Tallest Bar in the
Middle and More Bars in the Middle rules as explanations for why the arrangements produced
the smallest standard deviation, with about half of these explanations referencing the mean, but
most students did not demonstrate a reasonable understanding of how the arrangement met the
criterion.
The third game presented a four-bar set where all the bars were of the same frequency. This
was intended to reduce the complexity of the task in anticipation of the fourth game which
presented a four-bar set with bars of different frequencies. Most students did not have difficulty
with this task, producing a balanced distribution with two bars at opposite ends of the scale for
the largest standard deviation and a contiguous, uniform distribution for the smallest standard
deviation. A Far Away strategy was cited by all the students, with slightly over half noting the
balance of the arrangement, and only a few stating that the distribution placed the value as far as
possible from the mean. All of the students noted the contiguity of the arrangement that
produced the smallest standard deviation with two noting that the arrangement placed the mean
in the middle of the four bars. Very little guess and check behavior was observed during this
game.

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 The fourth game proved to be a little more challenging. Six students displayed guess and
check behavior for the first task, although they tended to first move pairs of bars to opposite ends
of the scales, then move the bars and note the changes in the standard deviation. Three fourths of
the students justified the arrangements that met the largest standard deviation criterion by noting
the balance in the number of value at each end of the scale (e.g., 10 at the low end and 11 at the
high end; see Table 1). Many of these students also stated that the arrangement placed the values
far away from each other, with a few noting that the values were as far away from the mean as
possible. Again, a few observed that an arrangement placed the mean at the perceived center of
the scale (Mean in the Middle).
For the task of producing the smallest standard deviation, students tended to produce
contiguous distributions with the tallest bar in the perceived center, with only one student
creating an initial arrangement that was ordered. Most students appeared to have learned that an
ascending or descending order was not optimal. The Tall in the Middle and More in the Middle
rules were offered by three-fourths of the students as justifications, with six students referencing
the position of the mean relative to the bar or bars with the highest frequencies. Most of the
initial arrangements did not meet the criterion, which resulted in guess and check behavior to
fine tune the arrangement. The interviewer typically took advantage of this behavior by asking
the student to describe the shape of an arrangement that was being tested, most of which were
somewhat symmetric and bell-shaped. The interviewer asked if the bars could be arranged to
produce an even more bell-shaped or symmetric distribution. This usually resulted in the
students finding an optimal arrangement of the bars.
The fifth game presented another challenge with five bars all representing different
frequencies. Most of the students used a Balance strategy, but an arrangement that resulted in
the largest standard deviation was not obvious since there were two different ways to place near
equal amounts at the opposite ends of the number scale. This resulted in some guess and check
behavior for some before finding an arrangement that met the criterion. The Bell-Shaped
strategy was a little more prevalent for the smaller standard deviation task than was seen with
other games. This was probably a result of the interviewer’s questions and modeling of the bell-
shaped strategy during game 4. The odd number of bars made it possible to have a clear peak
with tallest bar that anchored the center of the distribution. The other bars could be alternated to
the left and right of the tallest according to height, producing a nearly symmetric distribution and
an optimal arrangement for the smallest standard deviation. However, only two students
operated with an alternating strategy. Others positioned the tallest bar first, then placed two bars
to the left and two bars to the right of the tallest bar, but not in an optimal arrangement. This was
followed by guess and check behavior to produce an arrangement that met the criterion.
All students developed the strategy of swapping the positions of the bars (Mirror Image) to
produce a second distribution that met the larger standard deviation criterion. Most students also
generalized this strategy to producing a second or third arrangement that met the smaller
standard deviation criterion. Only one student did not spontaneously use this strategy after the
second game, suggesting that she did not see Mirror Image as a general strategy that would
always conserve the size of the standard deviation. A few students independently developed an
understanding that once an arrangement was found that produced the smallest standard deviation,
moving the arrangement to a new location preserved the value of the standard deviation. If by
the fourth task of the second game the student had not displayed the Location rule, the
interviewer intervened on the fifth task by moving two of the bars to a new location while
maintaining the relative position and order of the bars, and asked the student if the third bar

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could be moved to produce the smallest standard deviation. All students were successful at this
task.

4.9 TEST CHARACTERISTICS AND STUDENTS’ STRATEGIES

Table 4 presents the rules and strategies that were cited as justifications for students’
responses to the 10 tests in Part 2. Tests 8 and 10 provided the most difficulty to the students,
and Test 4 proved difficult for two of the students. The remainders of the tests were solved
correctly by all the students, except for Test 5 for which Adam gave an incorrect response.
Students’ justifications for their responses tended to be along the lines of the rules identified
during Part 1, and tended to reflect relevant characteristics of the graphs. For example, all
students indicated that the two graphs had the same standard deviation for the first test, noting
that the arrangements were the same but in different locations. Similarly for Test 6, students
recognized that one graph was the mirror image of the other and that the standard deviations
were the same. Tests 2 and 3 contrasted bell-shaped distributions with U-shaped distributions.
Most of the students’ justifications reflected the Tallest in the Middle and More in the Middle
rules, although Test 3 also prompted Far Away types of justifications, probably because the
graph on the right was U-shaped.
Students found Test 4 to be a little more difficult than the first three tests. Most noted that
the only difference between the two graphs was the placement of the black (shortest bar). Only
about half of the students provided a justification for their responses, which tended to be either
that the graph on the left was more bell-shaped, or that it had more values in the middle or
around the mean compared to the graph on the right. A few students made reference to the left-
hand graph have more of a skew. Two students (Adam and Lora) judged incorrectly that the
graph on the left would have a smaller standard deviation. Adam noted the different location of
the black bar in both graphs, but did not offer any other justification for his response. Lora’s
justification was actually a description of each graph’s characteristics and did not compare the
two graphs on features that would determine how the standard deviations differed. When asked
to explain why she thought the graph on the right would have a smaller standard deviation, she
said, “Because they are just in order, basically like steps, except that one.” This could be
reflecting a Contiguity with Descending Order rule, but appears to be only a description of the
graph. Similarly, when asked how the graph on the right compared to the graph on the left, Lora
responded, “That, well that's kind of the same thing as this one, but this one is, um, the smallest
one is on the end instead, and along with the other one.” No other justifications were offered
before checking. The difficulty with Test 4 may have resulted from the nature of the Part 1 tasks.
The tasks in Part 1 required solutions that had some degree of symmetry and did not require
students to produce skewed distributions, although skewed distributions were often generated
and checked before an optimal distribution was found for the third task. The arrangements
produced for the largest standard deviation were U-shaped, although with a large gap through the
middle, while the optimal arrangements for the smallest distribution were bell- or mound-shaped.
This experience in Part 1 probably facilitated the comparison in tests 2 and 3, but did not
necessarily provide experience directly related to the comparison needed to solve Test 4.
Nonetheless, the majority of the students correctly identified the graph on the right as having a
larger standard deviation.
Almost all of the students’ justifications for Test 5 involved statements of contiguity. A few
students noted that the range was wider in the left-hand graph so that the right-hand graph should

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have a smaller standard deviation given that the bars were the same and in the same order in both
graphs. Two students, Adam and Jeff, appeared to ignore the gaps between bars in the left-hand
graph and responded that the two graphs would have the same standard deviation, suggesting
that shape was the main feature they considered in their decisions and an insensitivity to spread
or deviation from the mean. The first four tests involved graphs with contiguous bar placement,
so that Test 5 provided the first test of sensitivity to gaps between the bars. Test 7 also tested
students’ understanding of how gaps affected the standard deviation, although in a more subtle
way. All students answered Test 7 correctly, using arguments of contiguity and more values in
the middle for the left-hand distribution as the reason why the right-hand distribution would have
a larger standard deviation. Some students also noted that the right-hand distribution had
relatively more values away from the mean. Test 9 also presented gaps in the two distributions
and challenged the misconception that having the bars evenly or equally spaced produces a large
standard deviation. All students answered Test 9 correctly and offered justifications similar to
those used in Test 7, indicating that this initial misconception had been overcome by those who
first displayed it.
Tests 8 and 10 were created in response to students’ answers in a pilot study. Students’
statements during the pilot study indicated that many developed a rule that bell-shaped
distributions always had smaller standard deviations compared to other distribution shapes.
Tests 8 and 10 were designed to challenge this rule by presenting situations where a perfectly
symmetric, bell-shaped distribution had the larger standard deviation between the pair. In Test 8,
the left-hand graph was U-shaped, but had fewer values and covered a smaller range than the
symmetric, bell-shaped distribution on the right. All but one of the students incorrectly indicated
that the graph on the right would have a smaller standard deviation for Test 8. Linda answered
correctly that the symmetric, bell-shaped graph would have a larger standard deviation. Her
reasoning was that “there are more bars. There, um, even though like I think they are clumped
pretty well, there’s still, um, a higher frequency and so, there’s three more, so because of like the
extra three there’s going to be more like room for deviation just because there’s more added
values.”
Other students noted that there were more bars or values in the graph on the right, or that it
had a larger range, but still selected the smaller option as an answer. Students tended to note the
bell-shape or the perception that more values were in the middle of the right-hand distribution
compared to the one on the left as reasons for their responses. After checking the answer and
finding out it was incorrect, the interviewer attempted to guide the students’ attention to the
ambiguity that stemmed from a comparison of characteristics between the two graphs. Students’
attention was drawn to the differences in the number of values and the range, pointing out that
while the bell shape suggested the right-hand graph would have a smaller standard deviation, the
larger range made it possible for it to have a larger standard deviation, and the different number
of values (or bars) presented a different situation than was presented either during Part 1 or in the
previous tests. The interviewer suggested that in ambiguous situations it might be necessary to
calculate the standard deviations, and demonstrated how the information provided by the
program could be used to do so.
When students came to Test 10, they were more likely to note the difference in the number of
bars or values between the two graphs and resort to calculating the standard deviation for the
graph on the right. Nine of the students came to a correct decision predominantly through
calculation. Two of the students (Troy and Jane) initially predicted the graph on the right to have
a larger standard deviation, but then noted the discrepancy in range or number of values,

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calculated the standard deviation, and changed their choice. Three students (Jeff, Lora, and
Linda) did not perform calculations and incorrectly responded that the right-hand graph would
have a larger standard deviation. Because Linda correctly answered Test 8, she did not receive
the same guidance from interviewer received by the other students, which may account for her
incorrect response on Test 10.

4.10 COORDINATED CONCEPTIONS AND REASONING

Table 5 lists the games in Part 1 and the tests in Part 2 where students presented evidence of
basic concepts and coordination of basic concepts. The information in Table 5 was used to
tabulate the number of coordinated concepts a student displayed during Part 1 (a measure of
conceptual richness), and the number of games on which a student presented evidence of the C-
DFsd coordination (a measure of the extent of C-DFsd reasoning). These measures were used to
rank order the students by sorting first on the number of games with C-DFsd coordination, and
then by the total number of coordinated concepts (see Table 6). Table 6 also indicates -whether
or not the students gave correct responses for each test, and tallies the number of tests on which a
student’s initial response was incorrect, regardless of whether or not the response was changed to
the correct choice before checking. In general, correct responses were not dependent on the
richness of concepts displayed by the students. This suggests that the rules students developed
during Part 1 were adequate for comparing variability during Part 2. Students who demonstrated
the C-DFsd coordination were more likely to use calculation on Test 10 to answer correctly. This
may suggest that students with rich conceptual understanding were able to consider the
ambiguity of the information regarding the relative size of the standard deviations in Test 10,
whereas this was less likely to occur with other students, possibly because their conceptual
frameworks could not represent more than one or two aspects of the distributions at a time.

5. DISCUSSION

This ensemble of rules, strategies, and concepts found in this study indicate that students in
an introductory statistics course form a variety of ideas as they are first learning about the
standard deviation. Some of these ideas, such as the Contiguous, Range, Mean in the Middle,
and Far Away-Values rules, capture some relevant aspects of variation and the standard
deviation, but may represent a cursory and fragmented level of understanding. Others such as the
Far Away-Mean, Balance, More Values in the Middle, and Bell-Shaped rules, represent much
closer approximations to an integrated understanding. There are still other ideas, notably the
prevalent Equally Spread Out rule and the idiosyncratic Big Mean rule, that are inconsistent with
a coherent conception of the standard deviation. Most students did not persist with these
misconceptions such as the Equally Spread Out rule and developed a subset of the richer rules as
they progressed to more complex situations in Part 1. Three-fourths of the students
demonstrated an ability to coordinate several concepts simultaneously, and half of them appeared
to coordinate the effects of several operations on the value of the standard deviation, an
indication of a more integrated conception. In general, the students moved from a one -
dimensional representation towards a multidimensional representation of the standard deviation.
Most of the students, however, used a rule-based approach to comparing the variability
across distributions instead of reasoning from a conceptual representation of the standard
deviation. Even among the students with apparently richer representations, their explanations

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were usually based on finding a single distinguishing characteristic between the two distributions
rather than reasoning about the size of the standard deviation through a conception that reflected
how density was distributed around the mean in each distribution. This may have been the result
of them having only a single hour of exploration and suggests that students first take a rule-
based, pattern recognition approach when trying to perform the tasks presented in Part 1 of the
interview. A pattern recognition, rule-based approach is consistent with a goal of finding the
right answer by noting characteristics that differentiate one state from another (i.e., one
arrangement from another) and noting how this relates to the size of the standard deviation. This
approach was promoted by the software in that the value of the standard deviation was always
available and there were no penalties for an arrangement that did not meet a criterion.
The interviewer also attempted to extend students’ conceptual understanding by trying to
draw student attention to relevant aspects of the distributions and changes in the distributions,
and by modeling the desired conceptual understanding. The software was designed to present
students with feedback that could potentially reveal students’ misunderstandings, and, to a
certain extent, it appeared that it did so effectively. The software was not designed with model
building or the promotion of model building in mind. However, several changes to the program
could be introduced to support model building. A simple change would be to remove the display
of the standard deviation value while bars were being arranged and only providing feedback on
the value when the students checked if an arrangement met the task criterion. This might result
in less guess and check behavior, although the students could still click the CHECK button after
every change. However, the interviewer could -prompt the students to give an explanation before
checking, and explore their understanding by asking them to consider alternative arrangements
without the benefit of knowledge of the standard deviation value. This may help to focus
students’ attention on relational characteristics of the distribution and to conjecture how they
might affect the standard deviation. Similarly, information displayed on the right side of the
window regarding the sum of the squared deviations may need to be removed so that a reliance
on the calculated values is not promoted over a conceptual coordination of concepts.
Several other features could be added to the software to further support model building.
Students often could not recall a previous arrangement of value of the standard deviation, which
made it difficult to compare the results of one arrangement with another. A review window
equipped with forward and backward buttons would allow students to revisit prior arrangements
that were present when the CHECK button was clicked, or a separate “snapshot” button could be
presented so that students could capture an arrangement before moving trying something else.
This would allow students to consider not only the arrangements that met the task criteria, but to
also test out hypotheses and conjectures more reliably.
The software currently promotes focusing attention on a single bar rather than visually being
able to see how characteristics change simultaneously. Although the deviation values in all bars
change simultaneously as a single bar is moved, this is not a visually salient change. An
alternative might be to create a second display above the graphing area that presents horizontal
bars that extend to the left and right of the mean point as a representation of deviation from the
mean. There would be one bar per value in the distribution, with the bars colored to match the
corresponding bar colors. As a single bar is moved to a new location, the lengths of all the bars
would change simultaneously, which might provide a more noticeable representation of the
dynamics. Such a visual display would also emphasize the density of the various deviations.
Many short bars with relatively few long bars would indicate a smaller standard deviation,
whereas more long bars relative to the short bars would be associated with a larger standard

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deviation. The review window would need to display this representation as well as the histogram
representation of the distribution in order to be effective. Controls for displaying only one of
both representations could be added to see if students preferred one over the other, or found one
more informative than the other.
Finally, the interview protocol needs to be modified to include model eliciting prompts and
probes. This can be done through eliciting conjectures from students about how changes to
arrangements will affect the value of the mean and deviations, and how these changes
subsequently affect the standard deviation, promoting a coordination of the concepts and a
relational structure that models their mutual effects. This contrasts with the current protocol
where the interviewer modeled the thinking and reasoning for the student rather than supporting
students to produce their own conjectures and test their implications. A model eliciting approach
is more likely to produce the “system-as-a-whole” thinking (Lesh & Carmona, 2003) that is
needed for the C-DFsd coordination, and to allow students to develop a more integrated
representational system - (Lehrer & Schauble, 2003) rather than - a collection of separate and
potentially conflicting rules.

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Table 3.
Number of Students Who Presented Evidence of Each Approach for Tasks 1 and 3 for Each Game in Part 1

Task 1: 2 Bars Freq = 8,4 Task 2: 3 Bars Freq = 6,4,2 Task 3: 4 Bars Freq = 5,5,5,5 Task 4: 4 Bars Freq = 8,6,5,2 Task 5: 5 Bars Freq = 8,6,5,4,2
Largest SD Largest SD Largest SD Largest SD Largest SD
Far Away 10 Far Away 7 Far Away 12 Balance 9 Balance 9
Mean 4 Value 2 Mean 4 Far Away 8 Far Away 5
Value 2 Mean 1 Balance 7 Mean 4 Mean 3
Range 1 Equal 7 Mean in Middle 3 Mean Middle 3 Value 1
Big Mean 1 Order 3 Equal 1 Guess & Check 6 Guess & Check 5
Bell 1 Balance 5 Guess & Check 2
Mean Middle 1 Mean in Middle 1
Contiguous 1 Guess & Check 8
Guess & Check 4
Smallest SD Smallest SD Smallest SD Smallest SD Smallest SD
Contiguous 12 Contiguous 11 Contiguous 12 Contiguous 7 Symmetric or Bell 5
Location 2 Order 9 Mean in Middle 2 Order 1 Alternating 2
Mean Middle 1 Tall in Middle 5 Location 1 Tall in Middle 4 Tall Mid 2
Guess & Check 1 Mean 4 Balance 1 Mean 2 Mean 1
Balance 2 More in Middle 1 More in Middle 5 More in Middle 1
Location 1 Mean 1 Mean 4 Mean 1
Mean in Middle 1 Guess & Check 1 Symmetric or Bell 2 Guess & Check 4
Bell 1 Balance 1
Guess & Check 7 Guess & Check 7

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Table 4.
Number of Students Who Referenced Each Approach to Justify Choices for Tests in Part 2

TEST 1 TEST 2 TEST 3 TEST 4 TEST 5 TEST 6 TEST 7 TEST 8 TEST 9 TEST 10
Location 12 More Mid 6 TallMid 3 Bell 3 Contiguous 7 Swap 11 Contiguous 7 Calculation 7 More Mid 5 Calculation 9
Mean Mid 3
TallMid 3 More Mid 3 More Mid 2 Mean Mid 1 Mean Mid 1 More Mid 5 Mean Mid 4 Range 4
FarAway
Tall Mid 1 More Mid 1 FarAway More Mid 2
Bell 3 FarAway 4 Bell 4 Mean 3
Balance 1 Spread Out 1 Mean 5 More Values 2
Range 1 Mean 2 More Values 4 Calculation 2
Range 1 Mean Mid 1 M&M 1
Contiguous 1 Value 1 Range 2 Contiguous 2
Range 1 Bell 4
Bell 2 More Mid 3 Tall Mid 1
Frequency 1
Contiguous 1 Tall Mid 1
Contiguous 2

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 Table 5
Games* and Tests** Where Concepts and Coordination of Concepts Were Exhibited

BASIC CONCEPT COORDINATION OF CONCEPTS

STUDENT VALUE FREQ MEAN DEV C-MV C-MVF C-DF C-Vsd C-VFsd C-Dsd C-DFsd
2
JEFF 9 9 9 9
1
TROY 7 7 7 7
2 3 3 23 2 3
JANE 2 5 8 2 2 58 2 5 8 5 2
2 4 2 4 23 4 5 2 4 4
ADAM 2 37 9
1 2 3 4 23 4 2 3 4
LORA 3 7
1 2 4 2 4 1 2 3 4 5 2 4 1 4 4
LINDA 3 3 3 7 9 3 3 3
1 3 4 3 1 3 4 3 4 1 3
MONA 2 4 5 7 9 4 7 24 5 7 9 24 5 7 9 5 9 4 7
1 2 3 4 2 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 4 2 3 2 4
NANCY 2 3 4 9 2 3 4 0 2 3 4 9 2 3 4 9 2 3 4
2 3 4 2 4 1 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 4
MARY 1 3 4 6 9 1 3 4 6 913 4 6 7 9 1 3 4 6 9 4 1 3 4 6 9
1 2 4 1 2 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 4 1 1 2 2 4
ALEX 237890 2 3 8 0 23 7 8 9 0 23 7 8 9 0 2 3 8 0
1 2 3 4 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 4 2 3 4 5
ALICE 2 4 7 9 2 4 9 2 4 7 9 2 4 7 9 7 2 4
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 4 5 2 4 1 1 3 4
CARL 234578 9 2 3 4 8 2345789 2345789 5 2 3 4 8

*Numbers on the first line of each cell indicate the games during which the concept was exhibited.
**Numbers on the second line of each cell indicate the tests on which the concept was exhibited. A 0 (zero) represents the 10th test.
Value: Concept implied by codings of Deviation, Far Away (V), or any coordination involving Value or Deviation
Mean: Concept implied by codings of Deviation, Mean in the Middle, Far Away (M), C-MV or any coordination involving Mean or Deviation

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 Table 6
Relationship Between Test Responses and Coordination of Concepts

PART 1 CORRECT RESPONSE ON TEST

Number of Number of Number of

Coordinated Games with 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Initially Wrong
STUDENT Concepts C-DFsd Responses

JEFF 0 0 YES YES YES YES NO YES YES NO YES NO 3

TROY 0 0 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES NO YES NO - YES 2

JANE 0 0 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES NO YES NO - YES 2

ADAM 1 0 YES YES YES NO NO YES YES NO YES YES 3

LORA 1 0 YES YES YES NO YES YES YES NO YES NO 3

LINDA 3 0 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES NO 1

MONA 2 1 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES NO YES YES 1

NANCY 3 1 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES NO YES YES 1

MARY 2 2 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES NO YES YES 1

ALEX 3 2 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES NO YES YES 1

CARL 6 2 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES NO YES YES 1

ALICE 2 4 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES NO YES YES 1

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