ERIC Number: EJ1123362
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Nov
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1570-1824
EISSN: N/A
What's Missing in Teaching Probability and Statistics: Building Cognitive Schema for Understanding Random Phenomena
Kuzmak, Sylvia
Statistics Education Research Journal, v15 n2 p179-196 Nov 2016
Teaching probability and statistics is more than teaching the mathematics itself. Historically, the mathematics of probability and statistics was first developed through analyzing games of chance such as the rolling of dice. This article makes the case that the understanding of probability and statistics is dependent upon building a "mature" understanding of common random phenomena such as the rolling of dice or the blind drawing of balls from an urn. An analysis of the verbalizations of 24 college students, who interact with random phenomena involving the mixture of colored marbles, is presented, using cognitive schema to represent the subjects' expressed understanding. A cognitive schema representing a mature understanding is contrasted to a diversity of observed immature understandings. Teaching to explicitly build the mature cognitive schema is proposed.
Descriptors: Statistics, Probability, Schemata (Cognition), Undergraduate Students, Games, Prediction, Experiments, Mathematics Instruction, Mathematics Education, Mathematics
International Association for Statistics Education and the International Statistical Institute. PO Box 24070, 2490 AB The Hague, The Netherlands. Tel: +31-70-3375737; Fax: +31-70-3860025; e-mail: isi@cbs.nl; Web site: http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/serj
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Pennsylvania
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A