The Comparative Study Of Statistics And Probability In High School Mathematics Textbooks Between China And Australia

The21st century is an era of information explosion, the public has to face the challenges brought about by a variety of uncertainties in the data daily. The Statistics and Probability as an effective tool for data processing, not only to help people discover the mathematical laws from the complex data, but also to further guide them to make rational decisions. This reason determines the importance of Statistics and Probability to public life. Based on this, states look on the Statistics and Probability as an important part of mathematics curriculum, and actively carry out its reforms to make Statistics and Probability to meet future development needs of the citizens. However, since the time of Statistics and Probability entered the Chinese mathematics curriculum relatively short, whether in curriculum’s set and textbooks’ written of Statistics and Probability or in the teacher’s teaching and student’s learning, there are many problems. Especially in high school, under the background of the new curriculum standards being not revised completely, there is a strong urgency to reform the Statistics and Probability for high school curriculum. Selecting the Statistics and Probability in high school mathematics textbooks as the research object, comparing the selection and arrangement of content and the difficulty degree of the content which have important roles in textbooks studying, between China and Australia who is quite distinctive in the field of Statistics and Probability.In the part of content’s selection and arrangement, similarities and differences of Statistics and Probability are found in the layout of the main content between China and Australia by directory listings, difference in the selection of specific knowledge by concept map. And the use of these two, the main line of content which can visually present the selection and arrangement of the content is depicted. By comparing the main line of content, and further found that:the arrangement of teaching content is generally in order of "univariate analysis, statistical problem of the analysis of the relation between two variables-the probability of random events-the probability of random variables-statistical problem of the analysis of the relation between two variables" in China, but "statistical problem of univariate-the probability of random events-the probability of random variables "in Australia; the contents’selection of statistics and probability and the formation of textbook is in order of "random sampling-data distribution-central tendency-the degree of dispersion-relationship between variables-probability of random events-special random events-discrete random variable and its distribution columns-binomial distribution-mean and variance of discrete random variables-normal distribution-regression analysis-independence test " in China,while "data description-data distribution-central tendency-the degree of dispersion-the probability of a random variable-conditional probability-Bays’theorem-the applications of the permutations and combinations of the probability" in Australia. Thus, there are some differences in terms of the contents’ selection and arrangement of statistics and probability between China and Australia.In the difficulty degree of the contents, this paper actively learn from existing research results, establishes the model about the use of the breadth of the content, depth of content and difficulty of examples and exercises to describe the difficulty degree of Statistics and Probability course, combines with the characteristics of the Australian and Chinese mathematics textbooks, learns and improves others’research methods, determines the division of the level on various dimensions. By comparison, the breadth of Statistics and Probability course in China lower than in Australia, and the cause of the difference from the Probability; China is almost the same to Australia in the presentation of the depth of content and lower in the content requirements; in terms of the difficulty degree of the exercises, China is higher than Australia only in background lower in the number of points in knowledge, computing and cognition; In terms of the difficulty degree of the exercises, China is lower than Australia in the number of points in knowledge and computing, higher in cognition, little difference in background.In the end, combining the analyzes about the causes of the difference on comparing with the end of the paper, this paper obtains the revelations of the textbook’ revisions on Chinese Statistics and Probability:adding and deleting the knowledge of Statistics and Probability appropriately, doing the convergence of Statistics and Probability curriculum at junior high school, university and high school; clarifying the relationship of Statistics’ and Probability’s each part, adjusting their scheduling order appropriately; actively exploring the background, especially in the binding mode of multi-cultural background and examples and exercises.