In spite of the apparent simpicity of averages, many researchers have described difficulties in its understanding by students at different educational levels. In this work we present an assessment of these difficulties for future primary teachers, with the aim of adquately guiding the taching of this topic.<br><br>The analysis of the answers shows that these future teachers have difficulties in understanding the following points: Dealing with zero and atypical values when computing averages, relative position of mean, median and mode in asymmetrical distributions, choosing an adequate mesure of central value and using averages to compare distributions.<br><br>We conclude that the traditional approach to studying averages in context-free data collections, does not allow pupils to fully understand the meaning of the concept, what must include the following: a) relationships of averages with other central position values, b) representativeness of mean in symmetrical distributions; b) the mean as expected value in random sampling processes; c) the mean as fair quantitiy to distribute for obtaining uniform distributions in finite populations.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education