Abstract
This study investigated the factors that 12th grade students in the United Arab Emirates take into consideration when judging the validity of a given statistical generalization, particularly, in terms of the sample size and sample selection bias. The sample consisted of 360 students who had not studied sampling yet. Results show that a small percentage of the students take the sample size and selection bias into consideration properly. Many students based their judgment on their personal beliefs regardless of the properties of the selected sample. This study identified some pre-teaching misconceptions that students have with regard to sampling. Such misconceptions include ‘any sample represents the population’, and, ‘any sample does not represent the population’.
Highlights
The realization of the importance of Statistics as a subject that helps students use data and information to communicate and make decisions led the educational system in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to give more attention to teaching statistics and probability at schools
This study tries to answer the following question: What factors do secondary grade students in the UAE, who have not studied sampling methods, take into consideration when judging the validity of a given statistical generalization?
The following definitions and variables are used in this research: Statistical generalization: A statement made about the population from the knowledge obtained from the sample
Summary
The realization of the importance of Statistics as a subject that helps students use data and information to communicate and make decisions led the educational system in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to give more attention to teaching statistics and probability at schools. In this document and within the ‘Data analysis and probability standard’ one can find sub- standards and performance indicators that relate to statistical thinking, such as formulating questions, collecting, organizing, representing, analyzing, and interpreting data, assessing statistical inferences and predictions, and understanding and applying basic concepts of probability (MOEU, 2001) This promising picture is a consequence of Data Analysis and Probability being one of the ten standards upon which the new mathematics school curriculum in the UAE is built. One of the ideas that was not included in the old curriculum and will be presented in the new curriculum for secondary school students is sampling techniques and standard error These concepts are basic to understand inferential statistics. This study tries to answer the following question: What factors do secondary grade students in the UAE, who have not studied sampling methods, take into consideration when judging the validity of a given statistical generalization?
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