Learning about statistical covariation

In this article, we report on a design experiment conducted in an 8th grade classroom that focused on students' analysis of bivariate data. Our immediate goal is to document both the actual learning trajectory of the classroom community and the diversity in the students' reasoning as they participated in the classroom mathematical practices that constituted this trajectory. On a broader level, we also focus on the learning of the research team by documenting the conjectures about the students' statistical learning and the means of supporting it that the research team generated, tested, and revised on-line while the experiment was in progress. In the final part of the article, we synthesize the results of this learning by proposing a revised learning trajectory that can inform design and instruction in other classrooms. In doing so, we make a contribution to the cumulative development of a domain-specific instructional theory for statistical data analysis.