Literature Index

Both learning style and academic belief systems have been identified as significant factors contributing to academic achievement. This paper evaluates the efficacy of teaching and learning in higher education by investigating the relationship between students assessment of their own academic proficiency (in this case Research Methods Proficiency [RMP]), learning style, academic locus of control, academic self-efficacy and academic achievement. First and second year undergraduate students' RMP was measured before and after completing modules in Research Methods. Students also completed measures of approaches to learning, academic self-efficacy and academic locus of control. Academic achievement (module mark) was also recorded. Results showed that perceived proficiency increased after completing the taught modules and that perceived proficiency was positively correlated with academic performance. Level 1 students, taught under the recently modified programme, reported significantly higher perceived proficiency than Level 2 students taught under the previous programme. Perceived proficiency was positively correlated with a strategic learning approach and negatively correlated with a surface learning approach and external locus of control beliefs. Academic achievement was also positively correlated with a strategic learning approach and negatively correlated with an apathetic learning approach. A deep learning approach failed to be associated with either RMP or academic achievement. It is suggested that: (i) these findings confirm, to some degree, the suggestion that there is an emphasis in later education on performance rather than learning (Lyddy, 1998); and (ii) perceived proficiency is a useful evaluation measure and is likely to contribute to effective and productive teaching and learning within higher education.

This longitudinal study follows the development of students’ reasoning about sample and sampling from 6th to 9th grade (age 12 to 15). The students took part in the Connections project (Ben-Zvi, Gil & Apel, 2007), an inquiry-based learning environment using TinkerPlots (Konold & Miller, 2005) in grades 4–6. One of the main goals was to develop their reasoning about sample and sampling in the context of making informal statistical inferences. After three years in which these students hardly had any formal statistics teaching at all, a series of inquiry-based activities were designed and administered in the 9th grade to evaluate aspects of continuity and change in their reasoning about sample and sampling. The SRTL-7 paper will present preliminary results which are part of the first author's Ph.D. study. 

The goal of this article is to introduce the topic of learning to reason from samples, which is the focus of this special issue of Educational Studies in Mathematics on statistical reasoning. Samples are data sets, taken from some wider universe (e.g., a population or a process) using a particular procedure (e.g., random sampling) in order to be able to make generalizations about this wider universe with a particular level of confidence. Sampling is henceakeyfactorinmakingreliablestatisticalinferences.Wefirstintroducethethemeandthe key questions this special issue addresses. Then, we provide a brief literature review on reasoning about samples and sampling. This review sets the grounds for the introduction of thefivearticlesandtheconcludingreflectivediscussion.Weclosebycommentingontheways to support the development of students’ statistical reasoning on samples and sampling.

Whatever the debates about the relation between mathematics and statistics as disciplines, the latter is typically offered within school mathematics curricula. This relatively new inclusion has enhanced the opportunity for learners to experience a greater relevance of mathematics curricula to their own lives, and hence also created the imperative to better understand how best to organise teaching and learning toward such goals. Not surprisingly, teacher education has had to take on such challenges and in so doing brought a focus also on what happens within the halls of tertiary institutions. The question this paper addresses is how best do we prepare teachers to connect mathematics and statistics education to learners' own realities. If project work, within a broad social, cultural political approach, is one means for forging such links then there is a need to analyse and better understand the kinds of teacher education pedagogies that may be engaged to build the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes and values among teachers.