NAVIGATING A DISCIPLINARY CHASM: THE STATISTICAL PERSPECTIVES OF GRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANTS

Abstract

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) carry a substantial instructional role in introductory courses for many mathematics and statistics departments. As a result, many GTAs have first-hand influence on the initial impressions of statistics for students from a range of disciplines. But as simultaneous learners of the discipline themselves, GTAs in statistics are still forming their perspectives of statistics and statistics instruction. Using multiple case study design, I conducted a longitudinal study with four, first-year statistics GTAs aimed at capturing their experiences and notions related to statistics. This paper highlights several disciplinary perspectives and tensions expressed by the GTAs. I also discuss noteworthy connections between the participants’ statistical perspectives and their pedagogical views for introductory statistics. Findings reveal that the GTAs in this study struggled to reconcile how authentic statistical practice could be translated to the introductory curriculum. I close with implications and ideas for training statistics GTAs in light of these findings