ERIC Number: EJ1114230
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Oct
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1863-9690
EISSN: N/A
How Can Histograms Be Useful for Introducing Continuous Probability Distributions?
Derouet, Charlotte; Parzysz, Bernard
ZDM: The International Journal on Mathematics Education, v48 n6 p757-773 Oct 2016
The teaching of probability has changed a great deal since the end of the last century. The development of technologies is indeed part of this evolution. In France, continuous probability distributions began to be studied in 2002 by scientific 12th graders, but this subject was marginal and appeared only as an application of integral calculus. With the high school reform recently implemented (in 2012 for grade 12), continuous probability distributions now have an important place in the scientific section. As induced by official texts, the use of histogram as a link between descriptive statistics and continuous probability distributions through its analogy with density curves, is indeed a promising path for learning. In order to answer this demand, which is indeed of general interest, we wondered how density function could be introduced for such a purpose. We began with a study of how textbooks deal with that question, which led us to propose an alternative introductory classroom activity. The reason for this proposition is that, contrary to what is currently implemented in textbooks, a specific mathematical working space (MWS) has to be brought into play, making various mathematical domains intervene in turn and articulating them with each other.
Descriptors: Probability, Teaching Methods, Mathematics Instruction, Class Activities, Foreign Countries, Calculus, High School Students, Grade 12, Educational Change, Textbooks, Statistical Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools; Secondary Education; Grade 12
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: France
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A