C Oswald George Prize Announcement 2022

Abstract

The article entitled “Characteristics of statistical literacy skills from the perspective of critical thinking” by Shunya Koga has been awarded the C. Oswald George prize for 2022 This paper describes the development of a framework to illustrate statistical literacy skills in terms of critical thinking, through investigating existing research on critical thinking, and examining and aligning its characteristics in the domain of statistical literacy across the range of its descriptions in statistical education research. The critical thinking concept is wide and diverse, and this study organizes the characteristics of critical thinking skills that are representative studies in philosophical research, by identifying their similarities and differences. The study examines how those skills are demonstrated in the context of statistical literacy as described in considerable existing research, for example in situations such as interpreting and critically evaluating statistical information. The critical thinking skills presented in this study are intended for adults or high school students and above. The article acknowledges the challenges in the many possible ways of investigating critical thinking skills in the teaching and assessing of statistical literacy, that is, in the implementation of the research descriptions in the practice of teaching and assessment. One difficulty is that curricula are not necessarily focused only on the characteristics of statistical literacy common across the various research descriptions of it. Here just one application of the developed framework of characterizations of critical thinking in the context of statistical literacy is considered, namely a course explicitly on statistical literacy. Assessment could be analyzed, but here some teaching materials, namely textbooks written for the course, are considered to illustrate the framework. By investigating, identifying, analysing, aligning and bringing together wide-ranging research work on statistical literacy and critical thinking skills, this paper provides thoughtful insight and a framework for investigating critical thinking skills in the teaching and assessing of statistical literacy, that is, in the implementation of the research descriptions in actual teaching and assessment. In doing so, the paper also implicitly indicates that investigation of critical thinking skills is needed into wider aspects of statistical thinking skills. Congratulations to the author for a thoughtful and challenging analysis and development.