Commentary - The development of change measurement

Ideas of chance were introduced to the Australian primary curriculum following the publication of the National Statement on mathematics (Australian Education Council, 1990). At the time the research base was limited. Watson et at. (1993) was one of the early articles addressing notions of chance in young students. Work on children's understanding of uncertainty had typically centred on formal probability rather than the less formal ideas of chance. There was little information about the responses that teachers might expect as children developed understanding. Watson and colleagues were the first to apply the SOLO model to ideas of uncertainty, thus providing a developmental framework to describe students' increasingly complex responses and suggesting suitable teaching sequences to address ideas of chance.