Local and global thinking in statistical inference
Statistics Education Research Journal, 7 (2):
107-129 (2008)Abstract
In this reflective paper, we explore students’ local and global thinking about informal
statistical inference through our observations of 10- to 11-year-olds, challenged to
infer the unknown configuration of a virtual die, but able to use the die to generate as
much data as they felt necessary. We report how they tended to focus on local
changes in the frequency or relative frequency as the sample size grew larger. They
generally failed to recognise that larger samples provided stability in the aggregated
proportions, not apparent when the data were viewed from a local perspective. We
draw on Mason’s theory of the Structure of Attention to illuminate our observations,
and attempt to reconcile differing notions of local and global thinking.