This paper is from Session 4E: Teachers’ knowledge and curriculum
which comes under Topic 4: Improving teaching and capacity in statistics education
Paper 4E2 (Tuesday 10th, 14:00-15:30)
Secondary school teachers’ knowledge of the standard deviation concept
Presenter
- Sylvain Vermette (University of Quebec at Trois-Rivieres, Canada)
Abstract
In this research, we investigate teachers’ statistical knowledge in relation to one measure of statistical dispersion, standard deviation. Twelve Quebec secondary school mathematics teachers were invited to respond to scenarios describing students’ strategies, solutions and alternative conceptions when presented with a task based on this concept. The teachers’ responses primarily helped us analyze their comprehension and practices associated with the concept of standard deviation and gain insight into how to teach this concept. Secondly, in this study we found similarities between the teachers in our study’s conception of standard deviation and those commonly observed of students.