Young Children’s Reasoning Through Data Exploration

Abstract

This chapter follows the progress of nine high-ability Year 1 Australian students as they develop reasoning skills through data exploration and analysis. The students used self-portraits drawn by child artists in Kindergarten and Year 3 to develop a rule-based classification model. Students tested their model on larger sets of self-portraits and developed their own illustrations to support the rule-based model. Seven of the nine students demonstrated advanced mathematical reasoning through their analysis of the test findings to inform their judgements regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the model. Students demonstrated this reasoning through graphical representations, reflective statements and two-way tables. These findings demonstrate the potential of rule-based model building and data analysis to extend the mathematical experiences of mathematically gifted young children