Connecting Probability to Statistics using Simulated Phenomena

Abstract

This article addresses the use of probability to build models in computer-based simulations, through which exploring data and modelling with probability can be connected. The article investigates students' emerging reasoning about models, probability, and statistical concepts through an observation of grade 9 students, who used TinkerPlots2 to model a sample simulation based on probabilistic models of populations and tested models by comparing their behaviour with the generated data. Results from this research study suggest that students' use of probability to build models in computer-based simulations helps students to conceive of objects as comprising a set of data and the data distribution as being a choice made by the modeller to create approximations of real or imagined phenomena, where approximations depend on signal and variation.