Inquiry dynamics at the crossroads of descriptive and inferential statistics

The fast evolution of statistics caused by technological developments is the basis of numerous challenges in undergraduate courses. Project-based learning (PBL) and similar methodologies have been proposed by various authors to develop students’ ‘statistical sense’. This paper presents a case study regarding implementing three study and research paths (SRPs) in an undergraduate statistics course. SRPs are inquiry-based teaching devices developed in the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic. This study aims to analyse the inquiry dynamics that SRP implementations promote, the influences of teachers’ interventions and the role of external instances. The way statistical knowledge evolves and links descriptive and inferential statistics is also examined. The results of this study suggest that SRPs can contribute to the self-sustainability of the inquiry process, which is not often the case in other approaches such as PBL. This study also highlights the use of question–answer maps to analyse the dynamics of the inquiry process in terms of the connectivity of the knowledge involved. Future research points to the study of the conditions needed to generate more adidacticity in PBL proposals.