The use of data collection activities in the secondary mathematics classroom

Many high school students find mathematics to be difficult and irrelevant to their lives. The focus of this project was to survey high school math teachers to find out how often they use scientific data collection activities in their classroom in order to make real world connections. The survey also explored teacher attitudes about the use of data collection and teachers' reasons for not incorporating more data collection activities into their curriculum. The analysis of the survey data showed that a little more than half of the teachers who completed the survey have used data collection and that the greatest factor limiting the use of data collection activities was time. This project provides some recommendations for math teachers and includes some examples of data collection activities that are appropriate for use in secondary mathematics classrooms.