Improving statistical education through the experience of reflective practice.

This thesis is the recount of a study that began with the aim of unpacking the statistical expertise of the teacher and author, with the intent of improving statistics teaching and learning. In the process of doing this, the researcher examined the expertise of other experts through a case study of a statistics professor, concept mapping of ideas of statistics professionals and through an examination of statistical literature. As the researcher and teacher moved to a position of accepting that statistics is a study of variation, she discovered a failure by authors of many introductory textbooks to appropriately acknowledge variation as a (the?) fundamental statistical concept.