| Popis: |
Statistics and its application in every field continue to penetrate gradually into the everyday life of people who are often unaware of its impact. As a result, statisticians need to make citizens aware of the importance and usefulness of Statistics and of its logic, by advocating statistical literacy as part of the culture of the information society. This implies that Statistics has to be introduced into curricula from the primary level to the tertiary, taking into account the learner's age and consequently the formal context in which the subject has to be developed. Attaining this requires investigation of the characteristics of Statistics as a teaching/learning subject. As happens with other disciplines, Statistics needs both qualitative and quantitative educational research in order to identify students' learning processes and the effectiveness of different instructional methods (Garfield & Gal, 1999). However to view Statistics education at only school and university level is restrictive. In fact, adults are also expected to be statistically literate, and so research on adults' statistical literacy is needed as well (Gal, 2002). Within the ISI family, the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE) is the Section devoted to the development and improvement of Statistics education on a world-wide basis. This paper stresses its role as an organization for research into Statistics education as a discipline in its own right. |
