Desenvolvimento de aplicativo educacional para dispositivos móveis no ensino de estatística

Abstract

In the last decades, a variety of sources of information and means of communication have been experienced, especially in the form of Information and Communication Technologies. Among these new technologies are mobile devices, such as mobile phones, that are evolving faster and faster when compared, for example, to personal computers. Among the educational environments that can use mobile devices as tools in the teaching-learning process is Distance Education (DE). Focusing on statistics, several pedagogical resources for mobile devices are currently being developed. It is understood, therefore, that analyzes on the applications can contribute to the development of resources more adapted to the DE proposal. With this, the objective was to develop an educational application for mobile devices that will help solve basic statistics problems in the training of high school students in the DE modality. It is an applied research of technological production, descriptive and quantitative, with experimental design and based on Didactic Engineering. The educational application called "Statistik" was conceived from a partnership between the Technology in Analysis and Systems Development course and the Mathematics Degree course, both from the Federal Institute of Piauí (IFPI), Campus Floriano, Piauí, Brazil. The selected site for the study was the IFPI, Floriano Campus. Sixty students from the second year of high school integrated into the technical courses of Electromechanics and Buildings participated in the study, divided randomly into two groups: control and experimental. The procedures for accomplishing the study were developed from a mini course on basic statistics and, as techniques for data collection, the application of a questionnaire for the educational characterization of the participants, a pre-test and a post-test. The analysis and discussion of the results were presented in graphs and tables and discussed according to relevant literature. The bivariate analysis was performed using the Mann Withney test. The results allowed to outline the educational profile of the participants, and with regard to the pre-test, the significantly lower marks pointed out the need to develop strategies that would collaborate to improve the work developed in the classroom involving the basic statistics, not being verified difference Statistics between the two participating groups. With the development of the Mini-Course in Basic Statistics, there was an increase in the means of the participating students, both in the experimental group and in the control group. In the group evaluation, there was a significant difference between the means of the control group and the experimental group, which implies that the use of the developed mobile application (Statistik) influenced the academic performance. Finally, the participants of the experimental group pointed out as the main advantages of using the Statistik the fact that this technology facilitates the learning of basic statistics.