The role of reading skills in statistical literacy among bilingual and native Hebrew-speaking college students

ABSTRACT

The aim of the current study was to examine the relations between reading literacy and statistical literacy of Hebrew-speaking college students (L1) compared with Arabic-speaking students whose second language (L2) is Hebrew. The contribution of reading skills to statistical literacy in L1 and L2 students and the differences between the groups, were examined. Statistical literacy was tested via final grades in the statistics class.

Forty-six native Hebrew speakers and 30 Arabic-speaking college students participated in the study. Word recognition and working memory predicted statistical literacy of both groups, and slower speed of decoding new words predicted better statistical literacy of L2 readers.

This is a pioneering study that explores the contribution of reading skills to statistical literacy among L1 and L2 college students.

The findings reveal the critical reading skills needed for statistical literacy. This study may enable educators to better assist college students in developing statistical literacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Hebrew
• higher education
• reading
• second language
• statistical literacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In fact, it was Curcio (1987) who in his well-known framework discussed three reading stages: reading the data, reading between the data, and reading beyond the data. Drawing on this study, Friel, Curcio and Bright (2001) have subsequently outlined six related cognitive processes: reading, describing, interpreting, analyzing, predicting and extrapolating data. Building on these and other sources, Kemp and Kisanne (2010) offered a five-step framework to guide class discussions: 1: Getting started; 2: WHAT do the numbers mean? 3: HOW do they change or differ? 4: WHERE are the differences or relationships? and 5: WHY do they change? (Gal 2019).

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

Notes on contributors

Miriam Sarid

Dr. Miriam Sarid, Ph.D., Reading and learning disabilities

Dr. Sarid holds a PhD in the field of learning disabilities from the University of Haifa, Israel. She is a senior researcher in the Department of Education and the Department of Learning Disabilities at the Western Galilee College in Israel. She is also the head of the Department of Learning Disabilities and Education at the college. She teaches graduate and undergraduate students topics related to learning disabilities, research methods and statistics. Her research focusses on the fields of literacy, higher education, and learning disabilities in children and adults.

Vered Vaknin-Nusbaum

Prof. Vered Vaknin-Nusbaum, Ph.D., Reading and comprehension (Haifa University,2004), is an associate professor in the Department of Education, Western Galilee College, and research associate, University of Haifa. She also is the head of the Education Department and the head of the Literacy Center for Education. She teaches undergraduate and graduate students topics related to reading, reading acquisition and learning disabilities. Over the last two decades, she systematically studied questions related to the processing of written language by typical and poor readers, and the way specific characteristics of Hebrew orthography and morphology modify the reading process. She participated in an international language and reading project funded by NIH with researchers from the United States.

Randa Abbas

Prof. Randa Khair Abbas, PhD is Academic Head & Rector of the Arab Academic College for Education – Haifa, ISRAEL. She was the first Druze Israeli woman to gain a PhD from Bar-Ilan University, and the first Druze Israeli woman to have the admission to the degree of Professor from the Council for Higher Education in Israel. She is a researcher, and some of her areas of research include multi-cultural education, educational leadership, generational gaps in traditional societies, perception of female leadership in relation to society and culture, and perception of identity and language in relation to the culture. She works in women's rights and the advancement of Arab women in the professional landscape.

William Dardick

William Dardick, Ph.D. in Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation.

William Dardick is an Associate Professor of Educational Research in the Department of Educational Leadership at the George Washington University. He holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation, University of Maryland, College Park, and an M.A. from the Department of Experimental Psychology, Towson University. His research areas include latent variable modeling, simulation design, model fit statistics, novel use of assessments, and multidisciplinary research in areas of education. He teaches graduate-level courses as program faculty, and was the previous director in the Assessment, Testing, and Measurement (ATM) program. Dr. Dardick has worked for numerous organizations, including his role as a managerial statistician and psychometrician for the United States Food and Drug Administration, and as a psychometric assessor for ANAB/ANSI under the ISO standard 17024.