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Informal Inferential Reasoning and the Social: Understanding Students’ Informal Inferences Through an Inferentialist Epistemology

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Topics and Trends in Current Statistics Education Research

Part of the book series: ICME-13 Monographs ((ICME13Mo))

Abstract

Informal statistical inference and informal inferential reasoning (IIR) are increasingly gaining significance in statistics education research. What has not sufficiently been dealt with in previous research is the social nature of students’ informal inferences. This chapter presents results from a study investigating seventh grade students’ IIR in an experiment with paper helicopters. It focuses on students’ reasoning on the best rotor blade length, addressing statistical correlation . We study how students draw inferences when working in a group; and how their inferences emerge socially in their IIR. For grasping the reasoning’s social nature and its normativity, we use inferentialism as background theory . The results illustrate how students’ informal inferences are socially negotiated in the group, how students’ perceived norms influence IIR, and what roles statistical concepts play in students’ IIR.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A comprehensive description of inferentialism, its differences from constructivism, and its strengths can be found in Noorloos et al. (2017).

  2. 2.

    Please note that (…) indicates a short pause of speech in the student’s utterance. We did not attempt to quantify the exact length of pauses.

  3. 3.

    Please note that it was Rose‘s emphasis.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) [2012-04811]. We furthermore want to thank the anonymous reviewers and especially the editors of this book for their constructive feedback and their efforts improving this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Maike Schindler

  2. School of Science and Technology, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

    Abdel Seidouvy

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  1. Maike Schindler
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  2. Abdel Seidouvy
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Correspondence to Maike Schindler .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Program in Mathematics Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Gail Burrill

  2. Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Dani Ben-Zvi

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Schindler, M., Seidouvy, A. (2019). Informal Inferential Reasoning and the Social: Understanding Students’ Informal Inferences Through an Inferentialist Epistemology. In: Burrill, G., Ben-Zvi, D. (eds) Topics and Trends in Current Statistics Education Research. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03472-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03472-6_7

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03472-6

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