Research and Recent Developments in Probability Education: An Interactive and Electronic Approach
Ramesh Kapadia1, Manfred Borovcnik2
1GEMS, Institute of Education, University of London, Surrey, United Kingdom; 2Institut für Statistik, Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Surrey, Austria

In the topic study group on probability at ICME 11 in 2008 a wide variety of ideas on probability education were presented, representing research across the world, including English, Spanish, French and German- speaking countries. In an international, collaborative, electronically supported project after the conference, all the key papers have been developed much further, innovatively incorporating electronic techniques. These techniques have been available for much of this century but hardly used in conveying research information. Following McLuhan, the medium of research has influenced the message (massage) of the results and - not surprisingly - the research has changed its character during this process. This presentation therefore presents a summary of the main threads of research in probability education across the multi-lingual world. It also comments on the influence of electronic communication in supporting such an exciting venture and its future possibilities. The summary will help researchers to build ideas the future; we believe that this paper will also enable developments relevant for other areas of research too.

Keywords: Research; Probability education; Electronic publishing; Interactivity

Biography: Ramesh Kapadia has undertaken research in probability and statistics education over the last 40 years. He was project officer for the ground-breaking materials to teach statistics publihsed under the title, Statistics in Your World, undertaking and writing research papers simultaneously. Subsequently he has jointly edited a book and an issue of an international journal on the teaching of probability.