Understanding basic demographic trends: connecting table reading, task design, and context

Abstract

The paper aims to inform the conceptualization of teaching/learning goals and instructional design related to understanding multivariate statistics that describe trends in society. The paper presents a conceptual analysis leading to identification of a gap in current analyses and instructional sequences focused on interpretation of information in tables [and graphs]. The paper advocates for the need to develop students' ability to reflect about the factors that cause or are related to observed trends, and about their societal implications, and highlights the need to develop task design principles that can promote such understanding. We then present an empirical demonstration of a possible class sequence, and results from an exploratory class activity with 43 students whose responses were content-analysed. Based on these results and the prior analysis, we reflect on benefits in terms of increased motivation and relevance of statistics instruction, and call for the use of task design principles that directly connect data, statistics, and class activities to the actual societal context in which students have to operate as adults, in order to enhance students' statistical literacy and understanding of statistics about society.