Using Constructivism to Develop an Agenda of Research in Stochastics Education Research

This chapter discusses the use of constructivism in developing research agendas in stochastics education (statistics, probability, and data science). The author, a researcher in stochastics education with a background in mathematics education, explains how constructivism provides a foundation for his work—both qualitative and quantitative. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding people’s mental operations and imagery to develop consistent meanings for concepts like confidence intervals. Through a conceptual analysis of one way a person might understand confidence intervals, the author highlights how constructivism allows him to pose and investigate questions about individuals’ understanding of concepts. The author highlights how constructivism influences how he moves research about individual cognition into classroom settings. The author also addresses how the reflexive nature of constructivism influences his approach to quantitative research.