Obstacles to Effective Teaching of Probability and Statistics

This paper describes four main categories of issues related to the effective teaching of probability and statistics at the precollege level. These issues relate to: 1. The training or retraining of mathematics teachers to teach statistics. 2. The role of probability and statistics in the mathematics curriculum. 3. The need for connecting research in difficulties students have learning probability and statistics concepts to classroom instruction, and 4. Assessment of student learning. Recommendations for dealing with these issues are offered.