Development of Modelling Competencies in Statistical Inference

Abstract

This study investigates pre-service teachers' development of modelling competencies through the observations of two teams of students training to be teachers who were engaged with modelling statistical data using linear models. Statistical models are special types of mathematical models, distinguished, in part, from other mathematical models because they are not determinist. The case studies presented in this article provide insights into situations when the study participants made inferences while they moved from the creation of an algebraic presentation of the logic underlying the simple linear regression procedure to a statistical model that best fits all the data and build this model by estimating unknown model parameters from the data.