Linking problems, conclusions and evidence: Primary students' early experiences of planning statistical investigations

Abstract

<p>An overview of many primary programs demonstrates the passivity of statistical learning in the junior years. Students are usually provided clean, orderly, simplistic data, or data representations, with which to work. When students are encouraged to collect their own data, it is limited to that which could be expected to cause little difficulty. The focus on contrived and unsophisticated data collection and analysis denies younger students the opportunity to design their own statistical investigations. The research reported here derives from the introduction of the statistical investigative cycle (Wild and Pfannkuch, 1999) to a classroom of 9-10 year old students. The students initially experienced difficulty envisioning the investigation process, despite both explicit instruction and multiple prior experiences with investigative learning. A focus on connecting problems and conclusions to evidence enabled students to plan investigations more efficiently.</p>