Contexts in Statistics Instruction: Main Project Page

“There is no statistics without context.” (Rao, 1975)1

With context so inexorably tied to statistics instruction, how should statistics instructors include context instruction while focusing on developing students’ content knowledge in statistics classes?

This question is at the heart of several small investigations conducted by a team of scholars. Together, they serve as a starting point and provide some creative ideas to help teachers design their statistics courses.

How many datasets should I use in one course?

This question was at the heart of an inquiry made by V.N. Vimal Rao in the Spring of 2019. These considerations, balancing the cost of cognitive load with the benefit of schema building and abstraction were presented as a poster at the 2019 US Conference on Teaching Statistics, and subsequently as an oral presentation at the 2019 Learning Sciences Graduate Student Conference.

Access project materials here:

Using podcasts to integrate context and content

Instructors often lament the “tyranny of context”, in that students’ prior knowledge about contexts used in statistics instruction manifests in activities meant to foster their development of statistical content knowledge. However, statistical thinking requires deep and meaningful interactions with context. How can we support students’ context knowledge without taking up too much time in class? Podcasts is one option.

Initial results from the pilot phase of a design based research study investigating how podcasts can be used to support statistics instruction were presented at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association.

Access project materials here:

Download some of the podcasts we’ve recorded here:

Project Team

This project was conducted by members of The Link Tank. In alphabetical order, the team members contributing to this project are:

  1. Rao, C. R. (1975). Teaching of statistics at the secondary level: An interdisciplinary approach. International. Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 6, 151-162↩︎