PME Stochastics Teaching and Learning Working Group

Letter No 7 - June 1997

Dear Friends,

This will be our last Newsletter before the Lahti Conference. We hope to meet many of you there and we are pleased to see a number of new faces who will be presenting papers on stochastics. Soon after the Conference we will keep the rest of our Group informed of what happened.

This Newsletter contains three main items.

1. A List of Stochastics Presentations at Lahti.

2. An Expanded Timetable for our Meeting at Lahti

3. Some Further Thoughts on the Book Production

1. Stochastics Presentations at Lahti

The following papers, &c, will be presented this year:

RESEARCH REPORTS

Bueno, Graciela & Cuevas, Carlos A.: A new approach for intelligent tutoring systems: an example for statistical activities

Cañizares, M. Jesus & Batanero, Carmen, Serrano, Luis & Ortiz, J. Jesús:

Subjective elements in children's comparison of probabilities

Fischbein, Efraim & Grossmann, Aline: Tacit mechanism of combinatorial intuitions

Hawkins, Anne & Peter: Are lawyers prey to probability misconceptions irrespective of mathematical education?

Spinillo, Alina Galvão: Chance estimates by young children: strategies used in an ordering chance task

Truran Kath & Ritson, Rene: Perceptions of unfamiliar random generators - links between research and teaching

SHORT ORAL COMMUNICATIONS

Dupuis, Claire & Rousset-Bert, Suzette: Tree diagrams in probability: a real register of representation

Fernández, Felipe, Monroy, Olga Lucia & Rodríguez, Liliana: Understanding of the notions of p-value and significance level in the solution of hypothesis tests problems

Hartman, Avigail: On the knowledge of high school mathematics teachers for teaching probability

Nasser, L. & Acselrad, M.V.: The comprehension of graphs and second school mathematics

Tarmizi, Rohani Ahmad: Correlates of students' performance in statistics

POSTERS

Batanero, Carmen, Godino, Juan D. & Navas, Fransisco J.: Some misconceptions about averages in prospective primary school teachers

3. Programme for Three Working Group Meetings

There will be three meetings of the Working Group.

Session 1 Tue pm (120 minutes) Chair: Kath Truran

GENERAL INTRODUCTION, CIRCULATION OF MATERIAL, &C

Report on Recent Summary Publications

Gal & Garfield (Carmen Batanero)

Shaughnessy Garfield & Greer (Kath Truran)

Borovcnik & Peard (John Truran)

FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES

ISI Istanbul August 1997

ICOTS Singapore 1998

ISI Helsinki 1999

BRIEF PRESENTATIONS

Any New Members of the Group who are not presenting full papers or short oral communications would be welcome to provide a 5 minute summary of their current work at this stage. Please let us know if you would like to do so, and perhaps bring a couple of overhead transparencies.

MAIN ITEM - BUILDING AN IMPROVED DATA BASE FOR STOCHASTICS RESEARCH

Research in Stochastics Education (Anne Hawkins, co-author of “Teaching Statistical Concepts”)

Brief summary of some current bibliographies in existence

Distribution and Discussion on Model Bibliographic Reviews (All members are welcome to bring examples with them and to talk briefly about them. We expect between 10 - 20 people in the group)

Management Issues

Comment on university requirements for gaining credit for publication

Amount of available resources - time and money

Possible Publication date

Refereeing criteria

Presentation of model bibliographic format

Discussion on structure & presentation

How to deal with non-English papers

Types of papers suitable for inclusion

Function of editors

Choice of which topics we will focus on at the start

Deciding on Small Groups to work on Data Base

Work in Small Groups

Session 2 Fri 1400 - 1600 (120 minutes) (Chair Carmen Batanero)

Continue Small Group Work on Data Base

Carmen will present a short paper describing our work and plans to the Advanced Mathematical Thinking Working Group. Copies of the paper will be distributed at the meeting. If you are not attending PME, Carmen will send you a copy if you ask for one—electronically will be easier.

Full Group Meeting (30 - 40 minutes)

Report by Carmen on the AMT report

Further discussion on structure and presentation in the light of experience

Session 3 Sat 0830 - 1000 (90 minutes) (Chair John Truran)

Small group work (45 minutes)

General Full Group discussion and making of plans

3. Plans for the Book

Cliff Konold sent a letter in which he made several important points:

The book might be seen as supporting “‘discussions’ or ‘development of multiple points of view’ related to published pieces of research and which could grow in numbers over the years.

Too many people cite citations of citations, but claim to have read the original, so the original findings become over-simplified.

The reviews should not be seen as a substitute for reading the original article but a way of locating relevant research and of supporting a more critical reading of the articles. This approach, responsibly conducted, and perhaps with more than one critique of some articles, overcomes most problems of bias.

Such an approach would be most flexibly done on the web, which would allow the compilation of a scrap-book of relevant observations. The work would be seen as work in progress, rather than a work needing up-sating from time to time.

The work should not be structured to propose implications for the classroom, because that has not been the purpose of the original research. Both teachers and authors may be mislead if it is.

A few more thoughts from John Truran.

There seems to be a need for all of

A fairly traditional bibliography with brief comments, accessibility if relevant, and key word coding

A brief chapter commenting on critically on other bibliographies available.

An introductory article which sets the whole topic (probability, measures of spread, association, &c) into context.

A list of articles relevant to a particular topic classified in some detail in accordance with key words. E.g., Green’s thesis would appear under “probability - primary”, “probability - secondary”, “probability - assessment”, &c.

Critiques of key articles, probably with the approach suggested by Cliff.

A comprehensive index.

Some of these features are best fulfilled via the web, others via some form of “completed” book (which might be on the web, on a disk, or looking like a book)

It is certainly important to separate clearly comments on research designed as research from com-ments on possible practical uses of research, but if educational researchers do not make the effort to cross the research/teaching divide then we will be taken even less seriously than we are now.

Some calculations for the sake of discussion.

Assume a comprehensive index of 20 pages

Assume a full annotated bibliography of 50 pages

So a 400 page book covering 8 topics would give about 40 pages per topic. This gives room for a summary of about 10 pages, a careful reference list of 5 pages and critiques of about 25 articles.

Next Newsletter

This is planned for the middle of August. It will contain a summary of the PME meeting and also the MERGA meeting (Mathematics Educational Research Group of Australasia) in New Zealand in early July. Please send material for inclusion by 7 Aug 97.

Carmen Batanero <batanero@goliat.ugr.es>

Kath Truran <Kath.Truran@unisa.edu.au>

John Truran <jtruran@arts.adelaide.edu.au>