Statistics in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement
by
Mike Camden
Massey University at Wellington

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement will replace School Certificate in 2002 (with 'Level 1'), Sixth Form Certificate in 2003 (with 'Level 2') and Bursaries in 2004 (with 'Level 3'). The NZ Statistical Association's Education Committee is working with the Ministry of Education's Mathematics/Pangarau Panel on the new Achievement Standards for Statistics. The statistics and probability in the NZ mathematics curriculum is a mix of skills for carrying out investigations, using reports of investigations, and performing mathematics on topics that arise in statistics and probability . At Level 1 and 2, we aimed to enhance the first two items. At Level 3, we proposed increasing the content with topics from the Addendum to the curriculum, and clarifying the way they were separated into two Standards. In this session, we will outline the plan for Mathematics (including Statistics) in the NCEA, comment on the feedback received by the Ministry from teachers, state what we proposed, give our reasons and summarise the present drafts of the Standards. Our proposal for Level 3 was that an (externally assessed) Standard would be on confidence intervals and their context, and that another would be an (internally assessed) investigation, involving 'the relationships in pairs of variables' or 'principles of experimental design' (from the Addendum). Our proposals have largely been built into the draft Standards. They have major implications both for NZ?s Mathematics teachers, and for NZ?s statistical community. The teachers will need the support of the statisticians. If a successful collaboration ensues, the next generation leaving Seventh Form with 'Maths with Stats' will have a strong base of very useful skills in investigation and data analysis. We will discuss what support the statistical community could provide. Mathematics in the NZ Curriculum. 1992. Learning Media, Wellington. Mathematics in the NZ Curriculum: Addendum to Level 8 . 1995. Learning Media, Wellington.

Date received: August 8, 2000

Copyright © 2000 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # cadt-14.