Teaching, Learning and Assessing Statistical Problem Solving

In this paper we report the results from a major UK government-funded project, started in 2005, to review statistics and handling data within the school mathematics curriculum for students up to age 16. As a result of a survey of teachers we developed new teaching materials that explicitly use a problem-solving approach for the teaching and learning of statistics through real contexts. We also report the development of a corresponding assessment regime and how this works in the classroom. Controversially, in September 2006 the UK government announced that coursework was to be dropped for mathematics exams sat by 16-year-olds. A consequence of this decision is that areas of the curriculum previously only assessed via this method will no longer be assessed. These include the stages of design, collection of data, analysis and reporting which are essential components of a statistical investigation. The mechanism outlined here could provide some new and useful ways of coupling new teaching methods with learning and doing assessment – in short, they could go some way towards making up for the educational loss of not doing coursework. Also, our findings have implications for teaching, learning and assessing statistics for students of the subject at all ages.