Seems to begin guiding us to arrive to an abstraction

seems to begin guiding us to arrive to an abstraction, in the case of a concept to
the solution in the case of a problem. Visualization is fundamental so that the
imagination begins to work, since the visual representations allow, sometimes, to
abstract a concept more efficiently that its verbal description. (Carrera, E., 1999).
In the visualization the computer is shown as the ideal assistant. That is why, it
should not be thought like a simple tool, but rather as a powerful auxiliary in
several stages of the problem solution.
5. A proposal
All these considerations have taken us to write a little book that is in printing. We
have been motivated to write it by the belief that most introductory texts do not
69

Elena T. Fernández de Carrera
explain adequately the concepts that underlie the whole subject of statistics, and
in many cases they are divorced from the reality. This book should provide and
understanding of the principles and concepts that underlie in data analysis and
the interpretation of results. Real data have throughout been used in it, mostly
from published papers, and we have tried data that are interesting in their own
right. This book should be continued later with the inferential part, although there
are already some very good ones.
6. The assessment
It is evident that this teaching approach also requires challenges in the way of
evaluating. It can no longer stay in the classic form of repetitive exercises and
questionnaires with simple answers like ‘yes or no’ or ‘right or wrong’. It requires
questions where the student reveal to understand the main statistical concepts of
the problem, the key ideas, the big ideas, to interpret a problem and to choose the
appropriate statistical tools that are more adequate to the data. It also requires
that anybody can read the paper, understand it and why not carry out critical
observations of the same one.
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to thank specially Professor Liliana E. Contini for her helpful
for the redaction this manuscript.
References
Altman, D (1997). Practical Statistics form medical research . Chapman and Hall.
London.
Batanero, C.; Estepa, A. Y Godino, J. (1992). An·lisis exploratorio de datos: Sus
posibilidades en la enseÒanza secundaria. Suma , 9, p 25-31
Burrill, G. (1997). Curriculum issues in United States Schools . Papers on
Statistical Education . IASE. Swinburne University of Technology. Australia. p
15-26.
Carrera, E. (1999). La educaciÛn a distancia y la articulaciûn enseòanza media
universitaria. El caso de la Educaciûn Matematica. Acerca de la distancia.
Rueda. Eudecor SRL . Argentina.
70

Elena T. Fernández de Carrera
Gal, I. and Gardfiel, J. (1997). Curricular goals and assessment challenges in
Statistics Education. The Assessment Challenges in Statistics Education .
IASE. The International Statistical Institute. The Netherlands. p 1 - 13.