Undertaking data analysis of student outcomes as professional development for teachers

The study reports on collaborations with practitioners to examine the results of students’ performances on high stakes tests as a means to strengthen practitioners’ knowledge of probability and statistics and to empower their conduct of investigations on student performance. Four issues are summarized: the development of their statistical reasoning, their understanding of the meaning of and relationships among the concepts of validity, reliability and fairness as applied to testing, their introduction to the history of testing and its relationship to science, society and cultural inequality, and their reports of independent inquiries. Data on performance on pre- and post-tests demonstrate growth in teacher reasoning and in their professionalism in raising important issues about testing