Resumo

ORTA AMARO, José Antonio  e  SANCHEZ SANCHEZ, Ernesto. Reasoning Levels about Statistical Variation of High School Students Solving Problems in Risk Context. Educ. mat. [online]. 2018, vol.30, n.1, pp.47-71.  Epub 07-Jan-2022. ISSN 2448-8089.  https://doi.org/10.24844/em3001.02.

In this research, the following question was raised: What aspects of students’ reasoning on the variability emerge through their activity in the resolution of problems in a risk context? To answer it, a questionnaire was designed based on two problems about comparing groups in risk context, one about a hypothetical game and another on medical treatments. The problems were answered by 59 high school students (16 to 17 years old) who had not yet taken a Statistics and probability course. Based on the solo taxonomy and in the participant’ answers, a hierarchy was proposed to define the main reasoning levels present in the answers. It is shown that the development of reasoning in its lowest levels only considers one value of each group, and at their highest levels articulates several data of each group and integrates considerations about the variability, interpreted like risk. The analysis of the answers shows the importance that students consider the arithmetic mean.

Palavras-chave : Statistical variation; risk context; reasoning; high school students.