A test of graphicacy in children

Abstract

A test of graphicacy was developed, administered to third- through fifth- grade schoolchildren, and scored using the Rasch model with Gustafsson’s conditional maximum likelihood estimation method. After removing children with scores at or below chance, the model fit well. It was found that of the four types of displays used (tables, line charts, bar charts, pie charts), the line chart was inferior to the others, which were all equal. There was some interaction between the kind of question asked and the display technique. Third-grade children were much poorer at reading graphs than fourth- or fifth- grade children, but the differences between these latter two groups were modest.