Malleable or fixed? Exploring pre-service primary teachers’ attitudes towards statistics

Abstract

In many countries, statistics has become a core constituent of the primary mathematics curriculum. Consequently, statistics education has become a larger component of mathematics education programmes in Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Due to the established links between teacher attitudes and ensuing classroom practices, it is important to gain insights into pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards statistics. The aim of this study is to explore attitudes towards statistics of 348 pre-service teachers on entry to an ITE programme. Furthermore, we examine the attitudes of 280 of these same teachers following completion of a reform-oriented course on statistics education. Our findings indicate generally positive attitudes towards statistics prior to engagement in a statistics education course with an acknowledgement that statistics may be difficult to learn. In contrast to the findings of studies that indicate the calcification of attitudes towards statistics for non-education students, the findings suggest the malleability of pre-service primary teacher’s attitudes towards statistics following engagement in a reform statistics education course.

KEYWORDS:

• Statistics education
• Initial teacher education
• attitudes towards statistics
• primary mathematics

2010 MATHEMATICS SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION:

• 97C20

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

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