Abstract:

The world around us is full of information. The ability to navigate through and process the information in daily life is essential for people. In this paper, we set out to explore the concept of Statistical Literacy, whether it is promoted during the education in primary and secondary schools and if the level of knowledge is enough for the university education. The Slovak National Institute for Education considers promoting statistical literacy as so important that it is implemented into the national curriculum. In Slovakia, students after completing compulsory education, at the age of 15 years old, should be able to implement, process and interpret their own statistical research. The traditional approaches to teaching statistics at the primary and secondary education mainly focus on formulas and computations. Are mathematics teachers promoting statistical understanding in their students during the education in primary and secondary schools? The questions this paper addresses are: How are the students’ real statistical skills at the start of university? How well can university students process information? What do they consider as important information? Graphic interpretation of data is clear and eloquent, normal in daily press, but is it obvious for the university students as well?

Keywords:

Statistics education, Statistical literacy, Project Based Learning, Data visualization.