Data analysis and statistics have emerged as major topics in primary and secondary (K-12) school mathematics curricula during the 1900's (NCTM, 1989; NCTM, 2000). Statistics - a discipline addresses primarily at the post-secondary level prior to the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathamatics (NCTM, 1989( - has lacked definition at the K-12 levels. The lack of clarity about what content to address has resulted in initial work focusing on how we might take more traditional statistics and translate the content for use with younger students. However, instructional practices have not been well defined. Increased attention has been given by researchers and curriculum developers to setting better directions for what we want K-12 students to know and be able to do with respect to data analysis and statistics and to defining the nature of instruction needed to support these directions.More recently, the interaction of technology with efforts to redefine both the content and instructional practices regarding data analysis and statistics in K-12 has provided new directions. Educational technology affords us a greater variety of strategies for teaching statistics and, at the same time, offers us new ways of doing statistics (Garfield & Burrill, 1997). Today, computers, software, and the Internet are essential tools for practice in this domain. The role of research must be addressed now, and the opportunity for defining and teaching a new content area with this kind of technological support must be grounded in research as this content is incorporated into school curricula.This chapter provides an overview related to this need by addressing the following questions:(1) What do we know about the content of data analysis and statistics to be developed at different levels, K-12?(2) In what ways can technology tools enhance current and new directions in teaching and learning data analysis and statistics?(3) What is the role of empirical research in clarifying the interactions between software development and use and the teaching and learning trajectories K-12 in data analysis and statistics?(4) What are the needs and directions that can help frame a research agenda?
