ICOTS-7, 2006: Reston, Jala, Edullantes 1 PROBING COLLEGE STATISTICS TEACHERS’ INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES WITHIN A STATISTICAL LITERACY FRAMEWORK Enriqueta D. Reston University of San Carlos, Philippines Liza Lorena C. Jala University of Cebu, Philippines Timoteo P. Edullantes, Jr. Cebu Institute of Technology, Philippines edreston@yahoo.com In line with the reform efforts in statistics education that emphasized the development of statistical literacy skills, we explored instructional goals and classroom practices of 12 college statistics teachers and analyzed them using Gal’s statistical literacy model. Through focus group discussions, we find that their goals and practices in the teaching-learning-assessment cycle are primarily based on mathematical and statistical knowledge and only three displayed evidence of literacy and context knowledge, and the capability for critical questions. While these teachers indicated positive attitude towards the promotion of statistical literacy, there are gaps between attitude and classroom implementations. Aside from the need for alignment of instruction and assessment with this goal, there is need for concerted efforts towards equipping statistics teachers with the knowledge and resources necessary in the promotion of statistical literacy. INTRODUCTION Statistics education research over the last decade has pointed out the development of statistical literacy and interpretive skills as a universally recognized goal of instruction (Rumsey, 2002; delMas, 2002). Consequently, reform movements in teaching statistics have given increasing attention on the development of statistical thinking and reasoning as important skills encompassing statistical literacy. These reform movements have implications on both the curriculum of introductory college statistics and the professional development and preparation of teachers. Chance (1997) argued that as instructional goals in statistics courses change emphasizing statistical literacy skills over procedural calculations, there is need for instructors to accompany these new goals with more authentic assessment techniques to evaluate progress towards these goals. The importance of instructional goals and objectives to direct the teacher’s choice of instructional and assessment activities is emphasized by many curriculum experts. Tyler (cited in Horowitz,1995) contended that while there may be differing goals within content fields, the philosophy that a teacher holds of his or her particular domain will influence classroom activities and assessments. In statistics education, Gal and Garfield (1997) presented a broad instructional goal of statistics education and described eight interrelated basic sub-goals which includes the development of interpretive skills and statistical literacy, among others. Statistics education research literature provides an expanding definition of the term statistical literacy. [See for example, Wallman (1993), delMas (2002), Rumsey (2002), Watson and Callingham (2003) for an extensive treatment of this term.] In this paper, we adopted Gal’s conception of adult statistical literacy as “the ability to interpret, critically evaluate, and communicate about statistical information and messages” (Gal, 2002). Gal’s statistical literacy model comprises two broad interrelated components; namely: (1) knowledge component which consists of five cognitive elements: literacy skills, statistical knowledge, mathematical knowledge, context knowledge, and critical questions; and (2) dispositional component which consists of three related but distinct concepts; namely: critical stance, beliefs and attitudes. In this paper, we probed teachers’ instructional goals and classroom practices in teaching introductory college statistics courses and drew implications on their statistical literacy knowledge-base and “dispositions” in the light of Gal’s model for adult statistical literacy.