The Levels of Conceptual Understanding in Statistics (LOCUS) Project: Results of the Pilot Study

The Levels of Conceptual Understanding in Statistics (LOCUS) project (NSF DRL-111868) has created assessments that measure conceptual (rather than procedural) understanding of statistics as outlined in GAISE Framework (Franklin et al., 2007, Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education, American Statistical Association). Here we provide a brief overview of the LOCUS project and present results from multiple-choice items on the pilot administration of the assessments with data collected from over 3400 students in grades 6-12 across six states. These results help illustrate students’ understanding of statistical topics prior to the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. Using the four components of the statistical problem-solving process outlined in the GAISE Framework, middle and high school students tended to perform better on questions assessing Formulate Questions and Collect Data; both groups also tended to perform relatively worse on the Analyze Data questions.