Probability and statistical inference are important ideas with a remarkably wide range of applications. However, psychological and instructional studies conducted in the last two decades have consistently documented poor understanding of these ideas among different population across different settings. The purposes of this dissertation study are to understand teachers understandings of probability and statistical inference; and to develop theoretical frameworks for understanding teachers understandings. To this end, our research team conducted an eight-day seminar with eight high school statistics teachers in the summer of 2001. The data we collected include videotaped sessions and interviews, teachers written work, and researchers field notes. My analysis of the data revealed that: 1) There was a complex mix of conceptions and understandings of probability and statistical inference, both within individual teachers and among the group of teachers, that are often situationally triggered, which are often incoherent when the teachers try to reflect on them, and which do not support their attempts to develop coherent pedagogical strategies regarding probability and statistical inference; 2) teachers conceptions of probability and statistical inference are highly compartmentalized: They did not understand probability and statistical inference as a scheme of interconnected ideas, but rather, ideas that are isolated from one another; 3) many teachers had a conception of learning as knowing how to solve problems, and teaching as displaying the expertise of problem solving. These conceptions of learning did not support their engagement in reflective conversations about the ideas in probability and statistical inference. The implications of these results include: 1) Understanding statistical inference and teaching effectively entails a substantial departure from teachers' prior experience and their tacit beliefs; and 2) the goal of teachers professional development should be helping the teachers develop understandings of probability and statistical inference as a scheme of interrelated ideas by exerting a great amount of coerced effort in helping teachers develop the capacity and orientation in thinking of a distribution of sample statistics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07152005-114321 |
| Date | 23 July 2005 |
| Creators | Liu, Yan |
| Contributors | Philip Crooke, Paul Cobb, Rich Lehrer, Patrick Thompson |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07152005-114321/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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