In this study, the schema-theoretic perspective of understanding general discourse was extended to include graph comprehension. Fourth graders (n = 204) and seventh graders (n = 185) were given a prior-knowledge inventory, a graph test, and the SRA Reading and Mathematics Achievement Tests during four testing sessions. The unique predictors of graph comprehension for Grade 4 included reading achievement, mathematics achievement, and prior knowledge of the topic, mathematical content, and form of the graph. The unique predictors for Grade 7 were the same except that prior knowledge of topic and graphical form were not included. The results suggest that children should be involved in graphing activities to build and expand relevant schemata needed for comprehension,
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education