Repeated sampling in a digital environment: a remix of data and chance

Abstract

Drawing statistical inferences (SI) is essential in a society where data are of increasing importance. Understanding the relation between data and chance, necessary to understand statistical inference, is however challenging for students. Technological innovations – such as the Sampler in TinkerPlots (TP) – enable students to investigate this relationship by modeling a population and simulating repeated samples. Along this line, the research reported here presents the results of a pilot with fourteen 9th-grade students, inexperienced with sampling, in a Learning Lab. The pilot focuses on how students use TP as a digital environment for exploring data and chance – i.e. what strengths and constraints they encounter – and how they subsequently use this information for SI. The results suggest that the participating students encountered difficulties in modeling the population, however, they were able to simulate, explore and reason inferentially through repeated sampling in TP.