Self-study
Statistics teachers often debate whether to teach the mathematical theories underlying statistics or to focus on the use of statistical methods to solve real problems. ████ ██ ████ ███ ██████████ ███████ ████████ ██ █████ █ ███ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ███████ █████ ███████████ ███ ██ █████ ██ █████ █████ ████ ███ █████ █ ███ ██ ███ ██ ██████████ ████ ████ ██ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ████ ███ ██ █████ █ ███ ██ █████ ██ █████ ████ ████████
Summary
For statistics, there is debate between two pedagogical routes: teaching the understructure or the application. This is similar to the choice of teaching a driver how to build a car (understructure) or how to drive (application). Ordinary drivers don’t need to know understructure for their purpose.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
The author is leading us towards the conclusion that, since most drivers don’t need building/understructure knowledge of cars, most statistics don’t need building/understructure knowledge of statistics.
8.
Which one of the following ████ █████████ █████████ ███ █████████
a
students should not ██ ████████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ████ █ ██████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████ █ █████
This is anti-supported. The author is relying on the assumption that we can presume a driving student’s goal to be learning to drive/to be a driver, and that a statistic student’s goal is to learn the application of statistics/to be a statistician.
b
statistics should be ██████████ ██ █ ██████████ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ███████████
Unsupported. The author does not speak to anything that would support distinguishing statistics from mathematics.
c
statistics teachers should █████ ██ █████████ █████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ███
Unsupported. Two issues:
- There is no ranking of “likeliness to use X skill.” The author does make assumptions about what the students (driving and statistics) have as a learning goal, but we don’t have support (no matter how intuitive it might feel) to say that this is because they’re most likely to use that skill.
- This breaks from the form of the comparison. The conclusion begins with “...just as ordinary drivers do not need...”, and so we can expect that the rest of the conclusion will speak to what statisticians do not need.
d
users of statistics ██ ███ ████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ████ ████████
This matches our prediction. (D) finishes drawing the parallel between what driving students don’t need to learn and what statistic users don’t need to learn.
e
statisticians do not ████ ██ ██████████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ █████ ██ ██████ ████████
Unsupported. The author doesn’t talk about students becoming teachers, or what is/isn’t required for that.