How do secondary school science students interpret and construct scientific graphs?

The study explored how Grade 10 science students learned from scientific graphs. This paper explores (a) students' abilities to interpret graphical information; (b) students' abilities to represent information graphically; (c) factors that could impede the process of interpretation and construction of graphs among secondary school science students; and (d) ability-related strategies that are used by students drawn from two contextually different educational systems. The data for the study was drawn from a representative sample of Grade 10 (15–16 years) secondary school science students in United Arab Emirates and Brunei Darussalam. Results suggested that students do not have the necessary ability to interpret graphical information. The results also suggested that students tended to interpret graphs much better than to construct them. A major conclusion from the study was that an emphasis should be placed on systematic instruction on data handling and graphical situations so that students learn how to handle information better.