Using informal inferential reasoning to develop formal concepts: Analyzing an activity

Abstract

Inferential reasoning is a central component of statistics. Researchers have suggested that students should develop an informal understanding of the ideas that underlie inference before learning the concepts formally. This paper presents a hands-on activity that is designed to help students in an introductory statistics course draw informal inferences about a bag of bingo chips and connect these ideas to the formal T-test and confidence interval. This activity is analyzed using a framework and recommendations drawn from the research literature. © 2010 by Aaron Weinberg, Emilie Wiesner, and Thomas J. Pfaff.