An international comparative study of mathematics textbooks is essential in identifying trends in international mathematics education, developing textbooks and improving the quality of teaching and learning in mathematics. This study analyses and compares the contents of the probability and statistics curricula in the high school textbooks of…

In this literature review, we survey student naïve ideas (frequently referred to as 'misconceptions') that plausibly relate, at least in part, to difficulty in understanding probability. We collected diverse naïve ideas from a range of topics in physics: Non-linear Dynamics; Cosmology; Thermal Physics; Atomic, Nuclear, and Particle Physics;…

When people interpret the outcome of a research study, do they consider other relevant information such as prior research? In the current study, 251 college graduates read a single brief fictitious news article. The article summarized the findings of a study that found positive results for a new drug. Three versions of the article varied the…

Statistical learning (SL) plays a key role in literacy acquisition. Studies have increasingly revealed the influence of distributional statistical properties of words on visual word processing, including the effects of word frequency (lexical level) and mappings between orthography, phonology, and semantics (sub-lexical level). However, there has…

The "Borel" board game consists of a series of experiments involving dice rolls, coin flips, or drawing colored balls from bags. Before each experiment is conducted, each player bets for or bets against a statement regarding the random outcome. We suggest that the collection of "Borel" experiments be used as a resource to…

Probabilistic simulations have long served as instructional tools in statistics and probability education. With advances in technology, computer simulation environments where large quantities of data can be collected and analyzed have been suggested as venues for problem solving in contexts involving both known and unknown probability…

The objective of this article is to discuss the development of statistical and probabilistic reasoning in childhood as a result of an interdisciplinary project, involving the fields of mathematics, statistics, and life sciences. This is a case study with three 10-year-old students from a Brazilian school. The children's oral and written narratives…

The authors present a new classroom-tested lesson that was designed to engage students in the joy of mathematical inquiry through a card game, Frustration, while building number sense, understanding of uncertainty, statistical reasoning, and discourse skills. The purpose in developing and sharing these lessons is to highlight how games of chance…

Statistical learning is a key concept in our understanding of language acquisition. Ample work has highlighted its role in numerous linguistic functions--yet statistical learning is not a unitary construct, and its consistency across different language properties remains unclear. In a meta-analysis of auditory-linguistic statistical learning…

We consider here two questions posed by first-year undergraduate students in a statistics tutorial session. These questions are related, and each concerns an aspect of independence in probability. The notion of independence does tend to be a little less intuitive than some of the other elementary probabilistic concepts, thereby providing students…

This survey paper presents recent relevant research in mathematics education produced in Spain, which allows the identification of different broad lines of research developed by Spanish groups of scholars. First, we present and describe studies whose research objectives are related to student learning of specific curricular contents and…

In this study, it is aimed to investigate the effects of various factors on the performance of the methods used in the determination of differential item functioning (DIF) in the DINA model included in the Cognitive Diagnosis Models. The current study is limited with Logistic Regression and Wald test methods which were used to determine the…

A formula is derived for a 'two-dice horse race', in which two ordinary dice are thrown repeatedly and each time the sum of the scores determines which horse (numbered 2 to 12) moves forward one space. This paper answers a question posed in a former "Teaching Statistics" article, and demonstrates the value of simulation.

Research on statistical education in childhood is recent in Brazil. The research has been mainly driven by curriculum reforms and the creation of research groups that investigate teaching, learning, and teacher education practices. The present paper emerges from this scenario and has the aim of investigating practices of creative insubordination…

There is much debate about the place of probability in an introductory statistics course. While students may or may not use probability distributions in their post-collegiate lives, they will likely be faced with day-to-day decisions that require a probabilistic assessment of risk and reward. This paper describes an innovative way to teach…