ICOTS8: Scientific Programme: Paper 3C2

This paper is from Session 3C: The impact of technology on learning to teach statistics

Full topic list

which comes under Topic 3: Learning to teach statistics

(Wednesday 14th, 11:00-13:00)

Students’ understanding and reasoning about sample size and the law of large numbers after a computer-intensive introductory course on stochastics

Presenter

Carmen Maxara (University of Paderborn, Germany)

Co-author

Rolf Biehler (University of Paderborn, Germany)

Abstract

A post-course study of students who participated in an introductory course on stochastic (probability and statistics) for future mathematics teachers is the focus of this paper. In this course the software FATHOM was used. Students learn to use FATHOM as a (cognitive and culturally mediated) tool for exploratory data analysis, for simulation and for inferential statistics as well as a tool for experimenting with statistical methods. We will focus on the analysis of three interview-tasks and report on the students’ intuitions on the role of sample size in two tasks that were analogous to the maternity ward problem and about their understanding of the role of n (sample size) and N (number of simulations) in sampling distributions in a coin-tossing context. Although the students had encountered similar tasks before in the course, our analysis will show the fragility and partly contradictory nature of their knowledge.