Empowering children in the use of statistics

Statistics pervade our society, yet the understanding of statistics has remained the domain of a select few. Although the majority of the literature has focused on the adult learner, there is a movement toward teaching statistics to children. This article addresses the ways in which the study of statistics has been examined in the elementary and secondary schools in terms of content, readiness of children to learn, pedagogy, and assessment. A proposal is presented of how a cognitive apprenticeship model can be developed from the empirical research findings in order to build more effective instructional and assessment methods for statistics education.