The Results of a Performance Test: a Multilevel Analysis

INTRODUCTION Evaluation is a problem which those involved in the field of didactics constantly face. Indeed, an analysis of the results is the only way to evaluate whether or not a particular teaching/learning process has been effective and, consequently, where to intervene. Various statistical approaches can be used in an evaluation and it is often quite useful to analyse the same data using different methodologies. During the 2001 school year, a performance test was administered to 1,545 middle school pupils in four Italian cities. They were part of a project concerning the experimentation of new didactic strategies for statistical learning. The students were divided into two groups, each with different didactic conditions Data Oriented Approach, or DOA, and DOA with Cooperative Learning Method or CL. The performance test was made up of 37 sub-items regarding the statistical notions introduced in the classroom. Various analyses were carried out on these data using descriptive statistical methodology (Milito-Marsala, 2002). The aim of this study is to analyse the results of the performance test by using a multilevel analysis, a methodology which quickly illustrates the relationship between variables while taking into account the hierarchical structure of the data.