Teaching statistics in middle school mathematics: İnvestigation of the curriculum and course materials

The basic steps defined in teaching statistics are formulating a research question that requires data collection, data collection, data analysis, and interpretation. The aim of this study is to examine and compare how these basic steps are handled in the curriculum, instructional materials, assessment and evaluation processes in Türkiye and in the countries that are successful in the field of statistics in international exams (Canada and USA). Document analysis will be used in the research. Data sources are Türkiye's Middle School Mathematics Curriculum (2018), 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade math textbooks, The Ontario Math Curriculum (2020), Math Makes Sense 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th textbooks, North Carolina Standard Course of Study K-8 Mathematics (2017) and Big Ideas Math Modeling Real Life (Grade 5,6,7,8). As a result of the research, similar approaches were encountered in the programs of all three countries in terms of general purposes related to statistics making processes. However, since the statistical gains in the curriculum differ, the statistical problem-solving process steps in the textbooks also differs. It has been concluded that our country is less comprehensive than the Ontario and North Carolina books, since it includes examples similar to Ontario in the step of formulate question and doesn't include sampling methods and experimental research in the data collection step. In the data analysis step, it is seen that it includes less acquisition content in terms of curriculum and textbooks compared to Ontario and North Carolina, and it's more limited in terms of representation types and statistical concepts.