This paper is from Session 2E: Using technology at school level to enhance statistical understanding

which comes under Topic 2: Statistics education at school level

From hat plots to box plots in Tinkerplots: supporting students to write conclusions which account for variability in data

Presenter

• Sue Allmond (Jindalee State School, Australia)

Co-author

• Katie Makar (University of Queensland, Australia)

Abstract

A statistical question acknowledges that there is variability in data that needs to be accounted for in the conclusion. Accounting for variability is problematic if students do not have an understanding that a distribution shows patterns and can be described by the centre, spread and overall shape. TinkerPlots provides opportunities to build understandings of spread and measures of centre as students work with distributions, adding and manipulating dividers and hat plots. In this exploratory study, students in a middle school inquiry classroom used hat plots to compare distributions and write justified conclusions. Results suggest that the necessity to account for variability in data within their conclusions presented students with a purpose to transition from hat plots to box plots to provide evidence to answer the question.