Early Statistical Reasoning: An Exploratory Study of Primary School Students' Use of a Dynamic Statistics Software Package for Analyzing and Interpreting Data

This paper explores the potential of dynamic statistics software for supporting the early teaching and learning of statistical and probabilistic concepts integrated within the mathematics curriculum. It shares the experiences from a case study that implemented a data-driven approach to mathematics instruction using the dynamic data-visualization software InspireData©, an educational package specifically designed to meet the learning needs of students in the middle and high school grades (Grades 4-12). The authors report on how a group of fourteen (n=14) Grade 4 (about 9-year-old) students used the affordances provided by the dynamic learning environment to gather, analyze, and interpret data, and to draw data-based conclusions and inferences. Findings from the study support the view that mathematics instruction can promote the development of learners' statistical reasoning at an early age, through an informal, data-based approach. They also suggest that the use of dynamic statistics software has the potential to enhance statistics instruction by scaffolding and extending young students' stochastical and mathematical reasoning.