Contributed paper list


   (Monday 14th, 10:55-12:25)   In session C2D

Students’ social representation of statistics in the humanities and social sciences

Authors

Jean-Marie Marion, Alain Bihan-Poudec

Presenter

Jean-Marie Marion (France)

Abstract

Our starting point is how undergraduates in the humanities and social sciences perceive statistics when they discover the topic through their university curriculum. We highlighted in previous papers that they associate statistics with mathematics, numbers, calculus… (Marion & Bihan-Poudec, 2012; Bihan-Poudec, 2013). Our theoretical framework is to consider learning as a social and individual construction. To that effect, we did a statistical analysis on a survey with 147 students majoring in Education either initial training or adult education. We first investigated the relationship between the type of course chosen by the students and their conception of statistics; second, we examined the students’ answers concerning their attitude towards statistics. Results reveal the link between attitude and cognitive factors, and between the students’ conceptions of statistics and their own experience of the discipline.