Research suggests that given a choice, less than 40% of prospective secondary mathematics teachers in any given cohort would opt for statistics and probability in their school practice. Majority of them would deliberately go for say, algebra, numbers, geometry, functions and then statistics and probability come last if the school has no other option.
1) What is your local experience with this question?
2) How have some successful institutions approached this seemingly innocuous issue?
I will be happy to share your experiences and what teaching and other institutional measures have worked for you.
Thank you.
George Ekol
From my experience, prospective secondary teachers understands statistics as just a tool so they don't give it the relevance it could have. This view of statistics is consistent with the fact that only activities are proposed to transmit knowledge. I understand that presenting statistics within research activities would give meaning to their use to interpret reality and would allow changing the position of teachers. In this sense, I think that the work of Carmen Batanero's research group is interesting, and I know that they have begun to work with future teachers.
Hello George - My serious answer first. Check out the attached work of my colleagues Jane Watson and Rosemary Callingham on statistical literacy (Jane in particular has researched and written a great deal on this topic and her work is accessible on RG).
More flippantly, I was reminded of Winston Churchill's fabulous quotation on Statistics: "Statistics should be used like a drunk uses a lamppost; for support not illumination" (!)
Hello George,
(Sorry for my english)
My answer wont be a scientific one but is from my own experience. Before my Ph.D, I was a maths teacher. I was completly surprised because my colleagues didn't want to prepare lessons about stats, they took just one week to speak about because of the official curriculum. They didn't consider stats as mathematics stuff and they didn't understand themselves that stats are so more than just rules and formulas. In Belgium (my country) I think the problem is maths teachers dont have a good formation in statistics and so they can't really teach it.
To: Lluis, Peter, Thibault:
First my apology to you for not being able to respond soon.
Many thanks for your contributions and reflections, which I found quite illuminating. Thank you Peter for the readings. I hope that contributions by teams, such as those led by Carmen Batanero, Jane Watson and Rosemary Callingham, will go a long way in supporting the practice of teachers at all levels of learning, for the direct and indirect benefit of millions of people.
Dr Ekol
My experience as a current mathematics teacher and head of department of mathematics is that generally teachers are reluctant to engage in statistics and probability.When it comes to the former, unnecessarily more time is spent by teachers on such concepts as measures of location yet there is more to statistics than location.In short,teachers dwell much on what they know/what they were taught than venturing into new knowledge.When it comes to probability,my experience with student teachers on practical teaching is that they are very uncomfortable to teach this area. Perhaps this presents a gap which future researchers could seek to close
A somewhat related answer based on research mainly by Karin Landtblom (we have a joint paper soon to be published which I'm happy to share): looking at prospective primary teachers, we see that their conceptions on averages are often based on everyday examples, but very seldom on mathematical properties of the different averages. What they consider being easy or hard follow the same pattern. Here, prospective teachers do differ from in-service teachers where the latter more often relate to pedagogical experiences and examples. However, very few of the teachers refer to intrinsic mathematical properties and mainly talk about the different algorithms. It appears that (1) statistics is tricky; and, (2) as teacher educators, we need to get to the core of these mathematical concepts. Statistics is a tool for problem solving and therefore important, but to understand the world around us, especially when combined with probability, it is essential.
Thank you Phaison and Lovisa for your reflections.
Looking forward to your paper, Lovisa. In particular, I would be interested to hear more about the primary teachers in your research, whose:
"conceptions on averages are often based on everyday examples, but very seldom on mathematical properties of the different averages."
I have been carrying out the lectures of students' statistics in the mathematics department for 20 years in college. I have my observations on the relevant subject and my work on developing a statistical attitude scale. Thanks.
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