A Framework for Capturing the Development of Statistical Concepts

Statistics education researchers have been challenged to consider the theory of inferentialism in understanding concept formation in students. A critique of inferentialism is that no method has been formulated to use the theory in practice. In this paper a Statistical Reasoning and Action framework is presented that appears to be capable of explicating the development of statistical concepts during learning. By following six 11-year-old’s learning over several statistical modelling cycles using TinkerPlots, the framework was used to capture their interrogative cycles of noticing and wondering, giving and asking for reasons, and sanctioning and censuring, as well as oscillations between concretising language about actions and conceptualising language towards concept formation. Two teaching episodes at the beginning of a learning sequence are used to illustrate its use.