This paper is from Session 10A: Collaborations between Statistics agencies and academia (schools/universities/colleges)

which comes under Topic 10: Innovative collaboration in statistics education

Developing statistical literacy amongst in-service teachers through a collaborative project

Presenter

• Delia North (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

Co-authors

• Iddo Gal (University of Haifa, Israel)
• Temesgen Zewotir (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

Abstract

Training teachers to promote statistical literacy in developing countries has to be very carefully planned to make the most effective use of limited resources available. In South Africa, an additional challenge of overcoming the generation of teachers that have a limited background in mathematics education, following the Apartheid era. The University of KwaZulu-Natal and Statistics South Africa have jointly introduced a program for promoting the teaching of statistics amongst in-service teachers (KZN maths4stats lecture series). This paper examines factors affecting the design of this simple intervention and its impact on teachers’ attitudes towards teaching statistics, and reflects on issues in the planning of future intervention programs and related research that could improve the adoption of statistics instruction in developing countries.