The Statistical Education: reflections in training contexts in the Federal District and in Goiás

Abstract

In national curricular guidelines, statistics has been present since the first years of schooling, its teaching and learning being defended in order to develop statistical literacy. This study discusses Statistical Education in contexts of initial training of mathematics teachers in the Federal District and Goiás, aiming to investigate the conceptual understanding of undergraduate mathematics students on measures of central tendencies. To this end, a qualitative interpretative study of 151 freshmen and 68 graduates was developed in response to questions from the National High School Exam (Enem). The results show difficulties in greater number among freshmen regarding the concepts of mean, mode and median. Such difficulties question the quality of the conceptual interaction experienced by them in Primary and Secondary Education; impose a limitation on the interaction of these students with the curricular domains specific of Higher Education, which impairs their training; and may limit their future teaching practice.