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University of Auckland, New Zealand

Faculty Members Involved in the Research Group

Maxine Pfannkuch
Chris Wild

Description of Research

This group's research initially focused on developing a four dimensional framework to characterize statistical thinking. The research focus has now shifted to understanding how statistical thinking can be developed in the secondary classroom. The research is developmental and involves the trialing of different teaching approaches. Using teacher and student data from the classroom the group is analyzing the informal inferential reasoning and thinking processes of teachers in an attempt to understand how teachers communicate to students how to explore and learn from data and how teachers build concepts towards statistical inferential reasoning.

Website

Maxine Pfannkuch's Homepage
www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~pfannkuc

Selected Publications

• Wild, C.J. (2006). The concept of distribution. Statistics Education Research Journal, 5(2), 10-26, www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/serj
• Pfannkuch, M., (2006). Comparing box plot distributions: A teacher's reasoning. Statistics Education Research Journal, 5(2), 27-45, www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/serj
• Pfannkuch, M. (2005). Probability and statistical inference: How can teachers enable learners to make the connection? In G. Jones (Ed.), Exploring probability in school: Challenges for teaching and learning (pp. 267-294). New York: Springer.
• Pfannkuch, M., & Horring, J. (2005). Developing statistical thinking in a secondary school: A collaborative curriculum development. In G. Burrill & M. Camden (Eds.), Curricular development in statistics education: International Association for Statistical Education (IASE) Roundtable, Lund Sweden, 28 June-3 July 2004 (pp. 163-173). Voorburg, The Netherlands: International Statistical Institute.
  [Online at: www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/publications.php]
• Pfannkuch, M., & Wild, C.J. (2004). Towards an understanding of statistical thinking. In D. Ben-Zvi & J. Garfield (Eds.), The challenge of developing statistical literacy, reasoning, and thinking (pp. 17-46). Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Pfannkuch, M., Rubick, A., & Yoon, C. Statistical thinking and transnumeration. Mathematics education in the South Pacific. Proceedings of the 25th Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, Auckland, New Zealand, 7-10 July, 2002, 567-574.
• Wild, C.J., & Pfannkuch, M. (1999). Statistical thinking in empirical inquiry. International Statistical Review, 67, 223-265.