Using Concept Maps to Assess Pre-Service Teachers' Understanding of Connections Between Statistical Concepts

Concept maps are powerful tools for representing understanding of a concept. After designing a teaching sequence for the statistics content of a senior secondary mathematics syllabus, pre-service teachers were asked to prepare a concept map to demonstrate their understanding of the connection between the different concepts that had been included in the sequence. The concept maps prepared by the pre-service teachers were analysed in relation to what connections were made and the quality of the connecting statements. Results showed that these pre-service teachers had very different perceptions of the connections between the basic statistical concepts. Drawing the concept maps assisted the pre-service teachers to consider the concepts at a meta-level. How the concepts maps might be used as a tool for aiding the planning of learning sequences is worthy of investigation.