Making sense of categorical data – question confusion

When students encounter categorical data, lessons often focus on computing probabilities from two- way tables. These computations may involve simple, joint, and conditional probabilities, and the calculation of relative risk. However, little attention has been given to the questions posed. The purpose of this paper is to explore the questions that undergraduate students pose of categorical data, and their reasoning with a variety of representations of categorical data. Results from a small pilot study suggest that when the questions posed involved making comparisons, students were often confused as to whether they should compare proportions between conditions, or compare proportions within a condition.