This paper is from Session 1D: Building the capacity to teach and understand statistics in emerging economies

which comes under Topic 1: Sustaining strengths and building capacity in statistics education

Building capacity for developing statistical literacy in a developing country

Presenter

• Temesgen Zewotir (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

Co-authors

• Delia North (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)
• Iddo Gal (University of Haifa, Israel)
• Michael Murray (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

Abstract

Developing countries face many challenges when aiming to develop statistical literacy. In the design of interventions and workshops, countries have to consider teachers' limited background in statistics and in mathematics education, as well as their attitudes towards statistics, perceptions of the differences between statistics and mathematics, and more. The paper has two parts. First it will review selected factors associated with teachers' background and attitudes towards statistics that may be unique to a developing country and that may affect their adoption of statistics instruction. Second, it will illustrate some of the points in the conceptual analysis by examining results from brief surveys of two large groups of teachers who attended training programs and workshops jointly hosted by the national statistics office and a university in South Africa, with a focus on teachers’ belief in their ability to teach statistics topics and on their attitudes towards acquiring statistics skills.