Assessing understanding in statistics

Abstract

Using a framework for assessing dimensions of understanding in statistics a series of assessment tasks were developed by the researcher to address both procedural and conceptual understanding. This paper describes these tasks, together with the results of students’ performance on the tasks. It will be shown that, while some of the tasks developed did assess the dimension of knowledge which they were developed to address, and some did not, overall it was possible to develop tasks to specifically assess both procedural and conceptual knowledge in statistical inference.