Y9 It’s all about us! – Summary investigations teaching sequence new

This is a suggested teaching sequence (12 lessons) covering summary investigations. It could be combined with a series of lessons on relationship investigations (e.g., 6 lessons) for year 9 statistics. The teaching sequence has a focus on the students collecting data about themselves. This is still in draft form; some of the lessons are not fully written up.  Links are made to the draft curriculum statement March 2025, these links will be updated when the new curriculum is released.

The materials were developed in conjunction with and trialled by Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, Lynfield College, and Northcote College mathematics and statistics departments.  

The summary investigation lessons are based on students undertaking a statistical enquiry to find out about the class or year level.  Lessons 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 broadly follow a statistical enquiry using the PPDAC cycle; this is noted in each lesson.  Lessons 3, 4, 7, and 8 are concept development lessons, timed to allow for data collection and data entry across a year level cohort for the statistical enquiry.

This teaching sequence covers these draft progress statements and will be updated once the curriculum is published: 

1. 1. investigate multivariate data situations for observational studies by
      
      1. exploring areas of interest (Lesson 1)
      2. posing summary investigative questions (Lesson 7, 9)
      3. make conjectures or assertions about expected findings (Lesson 4, 7, 9)
   2. plan how to collect or source data to answer investigative questions, including 
      
      1. identifying the variables needed to answer the investigative question  (Lesson 2)
      2. planning how to make valid and reliable measures for the variables (when collecting) or finding out how they were collected (when sourcing) (Lesson 2, 7)
      3. identifying the group of interest or who the data was collected from (Lesson 2, 7, 9)
      4. using a set of interrogative questions that check the different ethical practices that should be considered through the entire statistical enquiry cycle, including checking data collection and survey questions before testing with peers (Lesson 2)
   3. collect or source data including (Lesson 6)
      1. making decisions about the validity of data and making simple edits (cleaning data) if appropriate (Lesson 5)
      2. creating a data dictionary (collected data) or finding the metadata (sourced data) (Lesson 2, 5, 7)
   4. create, describe and reason from data visualisations to support answering the investigative question, including
      1. using multiple visualisations to provide global and local views of the data (Lesson 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10)
      2. identifying relevant features in distributions (Lesson 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
      3. interweaving the context in the description of the distribution
   5. communicate findings, using evidence from analysis, provide possible explanations for findings, reflect on  conjectures or assertions, and evaluate the approach for the different phases of the statistical enquiry (Lesson 11)
   6. examine the data-collection methods and findings of others’ statistical investigations to see if their claims are reasonable, and critically consider data visualisations to see if they support or misrepresent the data (Lesson 12)