THE INTERNATIONAL STUDY GROUP FOR RESEARCH ON LEARNING PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS

Joan Garfield
University of Minnesota

Newsletter for the Section on Statistical Education
Volume 1, Number 2 (Summer 1995)

The International Study Group is an informal network of researchers who share a common interest in the teaching and learning of probability and statistics. This group was organized in 1982 at the first International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS) and then met again two years later at the Fifth International Congress on Mathematics Education (ICME). Over the years the study group has grown to include 120 members from over 20 different countries. The current goals of the study group are to facilitate the exchange of information among members, to distribute a newsletter, and to organize meetings of the study group at conferences such as ICOTS or ICME.

For the past seven years a free newsletter has been written and distributed three times a year to the study group which describes research activities of members as well as current journal articles and other publications on psychological and educational issues related to teaching statistics. Our goal is to soon make the newsletter available on the Journal of Statistics Education's Information Server on the World Wide Web.

Members of the Study Group have gathered for informal meetings (mostly to introduce themselves and share research interests) at the past two ICOTS meetings in New Zealand (1990) and in Morocco (1994). The conference in Morocco featured five different sessions where multiple research papers were presented by members of the study group. A collection of papers from these sessions has been produced and is being distributed at cost by the chair of the study group.

Because of the growing interest in research related to teaching and learning statistics, and consequently the increased number of research sessions at ICOTS meetings, the executive committee of the International Association of Statistical Education (IASE) decided that the next IASE roundtable conference (to be held in Granada, Spain in 1996) should have a research theme. This roundtable will explore research on the effectiveness of technology in teaching and learning statistics, and involve many members of the study group.

To become a member of the study group or to order the collection of research papers presented at ICOTS 4, contact:

Joan Garfield
Department of Educational Psychology
University of Minnesota
332 Burton Hall
128 Pillsbury Drive, SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
PHONE: (612) 625-0337
FAX: (612) 624-8241
JBG@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU

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