Research

Contrasting emerging conceptions of distribution in contexts of error and natural variation.
Discussion of part I: Variation in the meaning and learning of variation.
Do naïve theories ever go away? Using brain and behavior to understand changes in concepts.
Intricacies of statistical inference and teachers' understandings of them.
Middle school students' use of appropriate and inapproriate evidence in writing scientific explanations.
Designing a data analysis tool for learners.

In this chapter, I describe ideas underlying the design of a software tool we developed for middle school students. The tool - TinkerPlots - allows students to organize data to help them see patterns and trends in data much in the spirit of visualization tools such as Data Desk (DataDescription, Inc.). But we also intend teachers and curriculum designers to use it to help students build solid conceptual understanding of what statistics are and how we can use them.
Data-analysis skills: What and how are students learning?
Discussion of part II: Statistical reasoning and data analysis.
Causal learning from observations and manipulations.
Statistical reasoning: Valid intuitions put to use.

Pages