Exploring Statistics

This resource, produced by the Centre for Teaching Mathematics at the University of Plymouth, is designed to provide a series of short problems to stimulate discussion of statistics amongst students and between students and teachers; and to provide some longer investigations which search more deeply into the student’s understanding of the statistics topics found in Advanced level courses. It is hoped that by using the material in this resource, students will gain insights into aspects of statistics that cannot be formally taught, but that can only be gained by experience.

Student material 1: what happens if? consists of sixty problems designed to test student’s understanding of the basic concepts and ideas in statistics and to help expose common misunderstandings and thus help students to resolve them. The problems cover descriptive statistics, probability, probability distributions and sampling.

Student material 2: short investigations contains ten short investigations. These cover a variety of topics and are at different levels. They all do have the potential to be completed in a fairly short time, although some could be developed further if required.

Student material 3: long investigations consists of ten longer investigations which cover a variety of topics and are suitable for students at different levels. These investigations will require more time than the short investigations, and the teachers will need to allocate time to the students to work on these.

Student material 4: statistics hints and nudges provides ‘hints and nudges’ for students. It is intended that these should be given out if a group experiences difficulties while tackling an investigation. They provide a more structured route through an investigation for those who need it. The teacher material provides solutions to the problems contained in the student materials.