The statistics paper in the controversial 2004 Scholarship exams seems to have avoided the problems and debate surrounding many other areas such as the sciences and the languages. The percentage of students gaining scholarships in statistics is roughly comparable with previous years (2.7% in 2004, 3.7% in Bursaries 2003) and anecdotal feedback from some teachers indicates they were happy with it. This has been in part due to the influence the NZSA has been able to have. Our good relationship with both the Ministry of Education and the NZQA has allowed us input into these as well as the NCEA assessments. We have also been able to have significant input into the development of the new Mathematics and Statistics curriculum.

Here are some details. In this first Scholarship exam, 315 students achieved the Scholarship award in the subject now called ‘Statistics and Modelling’. That is 2.7% of the 11,674 who entered NCEA Level 3 in the subject. For Maths with Calculus, 242 students achieved Scholarship; 3.3% of 7,347. Over all 27 subjects, 2.1% achieved Scholarship.

If you’d like an interesting little activity, please find the 2004 Scholarship ‘Statistics and Modelling’ exam (see EdLinks), and send us your comments. We hope you’d all pass it!

The scheduled NCEA Level 3 and Scholarship subjects both ran for the first time last year, and hence therefore are now scheduled for review. We are represented on the review panel for ‘Statistics and Modelling’ by Alasdair Noble. For NCEA Level 3, we’ll be seeking to make it easier to teach and checking for anomalies (like whether we should teach students to fit straight lines to time series). For Scholarship, we’ll be seeking to preserve and enhance the ‘statistical thinking’ focus. The ‘standards’ for all these make interesting reading. We’d love to get your comments. See EdLinks.

The review of the curriculum has got to a stage where a review of the world literature in statistical education has been done, and the curriculum document is being drafted. Our representative, Maxine Pfannkuch, is leading the group that is writing the statistics strand. That’s one of the three strands in the new maths curriculum. We were impressed that the Ministry’s February conference for numeracy facilitators had time devoted to statistics, and a plenary speaker (Jane Watson from Tasmania) who is a leading statistical educator. Maxine addressed this conference also, and Alex Neill added to our presence. It is great that so many of our suggestions have been actioned, but we need to keep actively involved in the writing process to ensure statistics is given a fair go.

Our NZSA-sponsored speaker at the NZ Association of Maths Teachers conference in Christchurch in September is Helen Chick, of Melbourne. She shares our views that statistical education can be “useful, fun, manageable, non-threatening, full of fascinating possibilities, interactive and in a state of exciting change!”

Our goals for the year include strengthening links with the rest of NZSA; something we can’t do on our own, but we’re planning some initiatives.

Mike Camden

Level 3 NCEA external assessments and standards (stats and calculus materials)
http://www.nzqa.org.nz/ncea/assessment/exemplar/index.html

Search:
Mathematics / Assessment materials / level 3
Mathematics / Achievement standards / level 3

The scholarship paper
http://www.nzqa.org.nz/qualifications/ssq/scholarship/subjects/subjects05.html

Internal assessments for NCEA
http://www.tki.org.nz/e/community/ncea/resources.php

Choose: Mathematics

Statistics about exams
http://www.nzqa.org.nz/qualifications/ssq/statistics/index.html

Matrix for NCEA Maths
http://www.minedu.govt.nz/index.cfm?layout=document&documentid=7019&data=l