Building students’ inferential reasoning: Statistics curriculum levels 5 and 6

2011
Principal investigator: Dr. Maxine Pfannkuch
Research team members: 
Pip Arnold, Cognition Education; Chris Wild and Matt Regan, University of Auckland
Research partners: 
Anna Martin, Avondale College; Jason Ellwood, Otumoetai College; Jason Florence, Otahuhu College; Jeanette Saunders, St Cuthbert’s College; Lindsay Smith, Epsom Girls’ Grammar School; Marina McFarland, Auckland
 
The project was a two-year collaboration among two statisticians, two researchers, and nine teachers. There was an urgent need to understand how students can progressively develop informal statistical inferential reasoning from Levels 5 to 8 of the new curriculum. The project team designed innovative approaches to develop students’ informal inferential reasoning and sought evidence that these innovations had a significant effect on improving students’ statistical reasoning in this domain.