| Interviews were conducted with six students in an Advanced Placement Statistics class. The interviews were in the context of working problems in inferential statistics. Analysis of the interviews showed that a representational framework is useful in describing learning and in detecting problems associated with learning. Representation use in five categories was detected. These categories are imagistic, formal, syntactic, executive control, and affective. This dissertation presents evidence of both growth and regression in the quality of representations held by students and evidence of connections and conflicts between representations. Connections were instances in which problem solving was supported by representations from two systems. Conflicts were instances in which students were able to simultaneously hold two conflicting ideas in two categories of representation. Recommendations for better teaching based on the idea of representation are presented. |
