Working Group Report on Statistics Curriculum: Content and Framing

The aims of any statistics curriculum need to be stated explicitly. The aims need to be coherent within the general aims of the educational programmes, the discipline itself (statistics), and those of stakeholder groups when the curriculum is for a service subject. In schools, the aims of the statistics curriculum also need to be aligned with the aims of the mathematics curriculum when statistics is taught as part of mathematics. The principles guiding the construction of the curriculum will ideally be made explicit. These principles, together with the aims of the subject, will provide the rationale for the curriculum and help people with alternative views understand the basis of the curriculum. Any assumptions that are made should be made explicit so that those with alternative views can argue critically for their alternatives. Such assumptions might relate to the nature of statistics, the nature of knowledge (separated or connected, surface or deep, relative or absolute), pedagogy, the proposed audience, the historical development of preceding courses, available resources, the degree of choice left to the instructor, the assessment regimes (school and external), and the teachers’ responsibility to empower learners to continue their exploration of the subject after any formal courses are finished. Each statistics course or statistical component of a course needs to be aligned with associated courses, be they other statistical courses, mathematics courses, courses in other subjects (formal or informal) in which statistics plays a service role; and between courses taught at different levels (primary, secondary, undergraduate, and graduate levels). Part of this alignment involves making links between the subjects, seeing commonalities as well as differences, and considering how the balance of importance can swing from one to the other as particular topics are considered. As part of this alignment, teachers of statistics need to acknowledge their responsibilities as teachers in the general sense, and also as well as teachers of statistics, and realize how societal values can be incidentally learned because of the way the subject is taught and the activities used in the teaching. Technology has a role in the teaching of statistics and is changing the nature of the subject, its role can be summarized by: