Teachers’ Conceptions of Teaching Service Statistics Courses

In this paper, we report on the results of a series of e-mail interviews with statistics educators around the world, focusing on their views of the nature of teaching statistics as a ‘service’ subject. What do they think are the important aspects of statistics to focus on in such servicing teaching? What do they think are the characteristics of good teachers? And how do they go about developing themselves as statistics teachers? We analyse their responses to these and other questions using a phenomenographic approach to identify an outcome space for their conceptions of teaching service statistics. We examine the centralities and tensions that emerged from their responses and discuss the implications—insights on agency and reflective practice. The study contributes to a research framework for understanding the nature of pedagogical awareness in contexts beyond the setting for this study and aims to stimulate discussion about teaching service courses