THE ROLE OF CAUSALITY IN THE CO-ORDINATION
OF
TWO PERSPECTIVES ON
DISTRIBUTION WITHIN A
VIRTUAL SIMULATION
THEODOSIA
PRODROMOU
Centre
for New Technologies Research in Education, University
of Warwick
t.prodromou@warwick.ac.uk
DAVE PRATT
Centre
for New Technologies Research in Education, University
of Warwick
dave.pratt@warwick.ac.uk
ABSTRACT
Our primary
goal is to design a microworld which aspires
to research
thinking-in-change about distribution.
Our premise,
in line with a constructivist approach and our prior research, is that thinking about distribution must develop from
causal meanings already established.
This study reports on a design research study of how students appear to exploit their
appreciation of causal control to construct
new situated meanings for the distribution of throws
and success rates. We provided on-screen
control mechanisms for average
and spread that could be deterministic or
subject to stochastic error. The
students used these controls to recognise the limitations of causality in the short term
but its power in making sense of the
emergence of distributional patterns.
We suggest that the concept of distribution
lies in co-ordinating emergent
data-centric and modelling perspectives for
distribution and that causality may
play a central role in supporting
that co-ordination process.
Keywords: Distribution;
Causality; Randomness, Probability;
Variation; Microworld design; Emergent
phenomena
__________________________
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THEODOSIA PRODROMOU
Centre for New Technologies
Research in Education (CeNTRE)
Institute of Education,
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL,
United Kingdom