By Elise Lahiere, Youngjun Kim, Katie Monahan & (Montclair State University)
Abstract
In this project, we examine undergraduate students’ development of informal statistical inference about correlation as they engaged with the geometry software, GeoGebra, to explore dynamic scatterplots during a virtual class meeting. In addition to demonstrating how the GeoGebra activity sequence was used to support students as they developed their understanding of correlation, we will present case studies of three small break-out rooms from a college-level introductory statistics class, Stat 110: Statistics for the Biological Sciences. These case-studies illustrate students’ statistical reasoning about the correlation coefficient. Our findings suggest that depending on the type of conjectures students were asked to make, they were able to demonstrate at least one type of informal statistical inference, such as probabilistic language, generalizations beyond the data, or data as evidence. Our findings imply a utility for use of dynamic software in statistics courses, as well as productive teaching moves that support students statistical reasoning.