What's typical? Children's and teachers' ideas about average


Book: 
Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Teaching Statistics
Authors: 
Russell, S. J., & Mokros, J. R.
Editors: 
Vere-Jones, D., Carlyle, S., & Dawkins, B. P.
Category: 
Volume: 
1
Pages: 
307-313
Year: 
1991
Publisher: 
International Statistical Institute
Place: 
Voorburg, Netherlands
Abstract: 

This study explored the guiding conceptions and misconceptions from which children and adults build their models of descriptive statistics. Unlike other empirical studies of children's conception of average, we focus on people's own constructions of the idea of average and explore the relationship between informal ideas about "typical", "representative", and "average" with formal definitions and algorithms learned in school.

The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education