Fourth-graders’ meta-questioning in statistical investigations

This paper addresses the initial components of an activity in which 4th-grade students engaged in meta-questioning as they created and refined survey questions with the aim of comparing life across two Australian cities. We propose the term, meta-questioning, as a core, underrepresented feature of statistical investigations in the primary school. We report on the nature of the students’ initial posed questions and their subsequent refined questions, students’ justifications for their question refinements, their anticipated data collection, and developments in their question posing skills. Results include a hierarchy of question types posed by the students and how their question types changed with subsequent refinements.