Roles of Mathematical and Statistical Models in Data-Driven Modelling: A Prescriptive Modelling Perspective

In the light of the complex use of mathematical and statistical models in a data-rich society, their roles in modelling education research merit discussion. This chapter thus clarified the roles of mathematical and statistical models in data-driven modelling (DDM), with an emphasis on social decision-making from a prescriptive modelling perspective. A teaching experiment was constructed for 29 pre-service teachers making social decisions on the COVID-19 pandemic. The results revealed that mathematical and statistical models can be (i) a descriptive means to describe the features of trends and variability of data and/or (ii) a prescriptive/performative means to articulate data-based social decision-making and prescribe action for the preferred world, according to the deterministic and stochastic nature of these models in social decision-oriented DDM.