This paper reports on an instrument designed to assess the practices and beliefs of instructors of introductory statistics courses across the disciplines. Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, this project developed, piloted, and gathered validity evidence for the Statistics Teaching Inventory (STI). The instrument consists of 50 items in six parts and is administered online. The development of the instrument and the gathering and analysis of validity evidence are described. Plans and suggestions for use of the STI are offered.
Informal inferential reasoning is a relatively recent concept in the research literature. Several research studies have defined this type of cognitive process in slightly different ways. In this paper, a working definition of informal inferential reasoning based on an analysis of the key aspects of statistical inference, and on research from educational psychology, science education, and mathematics education is presented. Based on the literature reviewed and the working definition, suggestions are made for the types of tasks that can be used to study the nature and development of informal inferential reasoning. Suggestions for future research are offered along with implications for teaching.
First published November 2008 at Statistics Education Research Journal: Archives
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