Literature Index

In Italy 11 to 13 year old students go to the Lower Secondary School for a uniform scholastic program and to complete their compulsory education. After this students may choose to go to a variety of Upper Secondary Schools different in the length of their study programs (5, 4, or 3 years) as well as their study specializations (scientific/classical, technical, artistic, teacher training, professional training). Not all Upper Secondary Schools teach Statistics and Probability. Only technical and professional instruction provides, in some specializations and at different levels, for the study of Statistics and Probability in the last years of School (classes III, IV, V). Combinatorics and Probability when thought are always part of the mathematics program. Similarly Statistics can be found in the mathematics program, only if it includes Probability. Otherwise it is a part of the program of subjects concerned with economics, finance and so on. Reform projects have been under study in which mathematicians have proposed the introduction of Statistics and Probability into the mathematics program for all Upper Secondary Schools. At this moment the reform is still under discussion and it is not easy to predict how much time will be needed to reach an agreement. At this moment, apart from the contents of programs, the most serious problem for the teaching of Statistics in Italy is whether it is being effectively taught because of the limited preparation of teachers actively involved in the teaching of these programs.

Evidence-based policy requires sophisticated modelling and reasoning about complex social data. The current UK statistics curricula do not equip tomorrow's citizens to understand such reasoning. We advocate radical curriculum reform, designed to require students to reason from complex data.

What is "objective statistics"? How can a statistics teacher teach it? Is it possible at all? These topics are discussed in this essay. It is shown that statistics is subjective; this is pictured with an example of a relationship between two quantitative continuous variables, for which various statistical approaches can be applied. This subjectivity should not nevertheless be thought of as a bad thing - it is the intrinsic part that makes statistics an art of dealing with data. To teach statistics well, then, means to teach thinking statistically, to teach understanding statistics, and not only to teach applying statistics.

Traditional curricula in the social sciences result in students having statistical knowledge that is inert and consequently of low transferability. This is in part because these curricula separate mathematical and probabilistic content (present in statistics service courses) from the context in which the collection of observational and experimental data is designed (present in courses about research methods). This paper proposes a curriculum that removes this separation by merging the two domains into the research competency, in line with emergent pedagogical insights. This study describes the new curriculum and compares some preliminary learning outcomes of students following the proposed integrated competency-based curriculum with that of students following the traditional curriculum. The results suggest a higher level of understanding is achieved through the integrated approach.