Necessity for developing statistics curriculum to develop statistical inference skill

Abstract

　　As times and societies change, school education must also change. The focus of curriculum in new times moves from content to skill and capability. Curriculum development that focuses on developing skill and capability is required. In this paper, this issue is addressed in the case of statistics education. Specifically, this paper shows that statistical inference skill could not be gradually developed in the content-based current statistics curriculum in Japan. This paper claims the necessity for developing skill-and-capability-based statistics curriculum. To do so, first, five stages of development of statistical inference skill are identified and described based on findings obtained in previous research. The two big ideas of “sample and sampling distribution” and “variability,” which are essential ideas to the statistical inference, are particularly taken into account. Then, the goals and contents described in the current statistics curriculum in Japan are analyzed in terms of the five stages. As a result, it is revealed that the current statistical curriculum in Japan follows a continuous and systematic arrangement of statistical contents, but that it does not necessarily guarantee staged development of statistical inference skill.