This study contributes to the call for influencing practice by increasing attention to how learning environments can be designed to support learning in statistical inference. We report on a design experiment in secondary school (students 14-16 years old), that resulted in a set of lessons with the learning goal of teaching students how to apply…

Conceptual challenge is often considered a necessary ingredient for promoting deep learning in an inquiry-based environment. However, challenge alone does not support conceptual development. In this paper, we draw on complexity theory as a theoretical lens to explore how a primary teacher facilitated students' conceptual change through repeated…

In statistical inference, importance of sampling is recognized as one of its key concepts, which has allowed its incorporation internationally in different curricular guidelines and specifically in the Chilean curriculum, since the first notions of sampling are introduced in 7th Grade. This paper presents an analysis of the responses to an…

This study reports on a classroom activity for Grade 5 students investigating their reaction times. The investigation was part of a 3-year research project introducing students to informal inference and giving them experience carrying out the practice of statistics. For this activity the focus within the practice of statistics was on introducing…

As widespread as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) initiatives and reforms are today in education, a rudimentary problem with these endeavors is being overlooked. In general, education programs and school districts are failing to ensure that elementary teachers who provide children's early academic experiences have the appropriate…

Explanations are considered to be key aids to understanding the study of mathematics, science, and other complex disciplines. This paper discusses the role of students' explanations in making sense of data and learning to reason informally about statistical inference. We closely follow students' explanations in which they utilize their experiences…