Formalizing students’ informal statistical reasoning on real data: Using Gapminder to follow the cycle of inquiry and visual analyses

Graphical representations of Open Data facilitate students’ personal engagement in discovering and exploring data and enable students to intuitively access certain statistical concepts. The aim of this study is to identify important patterns and fundamental limitations in the learning processes when students acquire deeper understanding of “big ideas of statistics” (Garfield & Ben-Zvi, 2008). The objective of the study is to nurture students’ intuitive knowledge (Fischbein, 1987) by using the software Gapminder for data visualization in classrooms. In this exploratory study 19 students aged 14-15 were guided through two lessons of 1 hour and 40 minutes, each, using the Gapminder tool and materials to explore and visualize sets of Open Data while working on several worksheets and test items developed by the research team. Findings of this initial study are being used to further conceptualize and design successive investigations.