Statistical literacy in the elementary school: Opportunities for problem posing

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015. This chapter addresses opportunities for problem posing in developing young children's statistical literacy, with a focus on student-directed investigations. Although the notion of problem posing has broadened in recent years, there nevertheless remains limited research on how problem posing can be integrated within the regular mathematics curriculum, especially in the areas of statistics and probability. The chapter fi rst reviews briefly aspects of problem posing that have featured in the literature over the years. Consideration is next given to the importance of developing children's statistical literacy in which problem posing is an inherent feature. Some fi ndings from a school playground investigation conducted in four, fourth-grade classes illustrate the different ways in which children posed investigative questions, how they made predictions about their outcomes and compared these with their fi ndings, and the ways in which they chose to represent their findings.