ICOTS8 (2010) Invited Paper Refereed Verschut & Bakker In C. Reading (Ed.), Data and context in statistics education: Towards an evidence-based society. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS8, July, 2010), Ljubljana, Slovenia. Voorburg, The Netherlands: International Statistical Institute. www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/publications.php [© 2010 ISI/IASE] TOWARDS EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR COHERENCE OF A DATA-BASED STATISTICS CURRICULUM Anneke Verschut and Arthur Bakker Freudenthal Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, University of Utrecht, the Netherlands A.Verschut@fi.uu.nl As coherence is one of the objectives of a new data-based statistics curriculum for grades 10-11 (age 15-17) in the Netherlands, this paper explores the notion of curriculum coherence. Although policy-makers and educators around the world look for more coherent curricula, it is often not clear what this actually means. This paper works towards an operational definition of a coherent statistics curriculum by analyzing the results of interviews and email discussions with national and international experts on statistics education who were asked for their opinions on what constitutes a coherent statistics curriculum. The results are a first step towards evaluation criteria for coherence of the three common representations of a curriculum: the intended, implemented and attained curriculum. INTRODUCTION Education policy documents and curriculum standards in various countries strive for more coherent curricula (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2006; Newmann et al., 2001; Nixon, 1991). A more coherent curriculum could help students gain deeper understanding of the important ideas in science (Bransford et al., 2000; Shwartz et al., 2008). In the Netherlands more coherence within and between the curricula for different parts of science and mathematics is also one of the objectives of a broader reform movement in secondary education (cTWO, 2007). It is within this movement that a new statistics curriculum has been proposed for grades 10-11 (age 15- 17) of senior general secondary education. What is new in this curriculum is the focus on learning statistics by a data-based and problem-oriented approach. The reform follows similar movements in other countries (e.g., USA, Germany, and New Zealand) and is inspired by international research in the field of statistics education. Teaching students a list of statistical recipes is not enough to make them statistically literate. Students also need to see the coherence in the concepts they learn and in the basic principles underlying data analysis (Moore, 1997; Tarr & Shaughnessy, 2007). In the new curriculum, to be implemented in 2014, teachers are encouraged to let students work with real data sets and information technology. Furthermore, the curriculum has both a theoretical and a practical strand. In the practical strand students do research projects where they can apply to real-world problems the theoretical concepts they have learnt in the theoretical strand. Problem statement In order to know whether the new statistics curriculum will indeed be more coherent, criteria are needed to evaluate its coherence. In this paper, curriculum is defined as a course or plan for learning (cf. Taba, 1962; Van den Akker, 2003). Since no operational definition of a coherent curriculum exists (Newmann et al., 2001), it is necessary to develop one. In the online Cambridge Dictionary coherent is defined as: “If an argument, set of ideas, or a plan is coherent, it is clear and carefully considered, and each part of it connects or follows in a natural or sensible way”. This definition can be applied to a curriculum; however, it is still not operational. One of the problems is that a curriculum has various representations; another is the huge gap between the original ideas and intentions of a new curriculum and the curriculum actually enacted in classrooms (Van den Akker & Voogt, 1994; Begg, 2005). Thus, a thorough evaluation of a new curriculum should look at different representations of a curriculum. There are three common representations of a curriculum: the intended, implemented and attained curriculum (Goodlad, 1979; Van den Akker, 2003). The intended curriculum is represented by curriculum documents and instructional materials, the implemented curriculum by teaching and learning activities actually enacted in classrooms, and the attained curriculum is represented by students’ learning experiences and learning results.