The impact of contrasting cases on students' statistical thinking and on students' preparation for the application of differentiating in future learning situations

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of contrasting cases on preservice teachers' statistical thinking. The treatment and control groups consisted of two sections of Quantitative Reasoning, a course required of all education majors. Analysis of covariance was used to analyze the means of the experimental and control groups on a measure investigating statistical reasoning. Pretest and posttest attitudes toward statistics were also administered and compared within and between both groups, and relationships between attitudes and reasoning ability and prior statistical knowledge and reasoning ability were examined. Intensive interviews were used to: investigate subjects' ability to use contrasting cases in novel situations, look at how contrasting cases changed the questions and assumptions revealed in student responses as they were interpreting quantitative situations, and compare subjects' questions to Wild & Pfannkuch's types of dispositions in statistical thinking. The group involved in contrasting cases showed significant gains over the control group in reasoning abilities.