Educational Research - the Ethics and Aesthetics of Statistics

134 U. Stadler-Altmann and E. Keiner
collected data and theories that provide a pool of information and meaning. This
serves as the structural background for the presentation, which to some extent can
be perceived as a scholarly performance to satisfy the audience. Poems are based on
everyday language and a pool of – in our example German – words with ambiguous
and different meanings and practices, which can be perceived as a literary composition
to enchant the reader. The researcher, looking over the results and imagining the
possible audience, selects those words and graphs which illustrate his/her research
questions and answers. Like the researcher, the poet selects those words and symbols
that she/he assumes would help the audience to understand her/his meaning.
Kurt Schwitters uses two types of symbols: words and graphical presentation (in
his recitation of ‘Anna Blume’, which was recorded since 1922, he also uses different
emphases). In an oral presentation of educational statistical research we often
use mathematical symbols, which immediately become transferred into everyday
language and take on different meanings. And, similar to the expectation of Kurt
Schwitters, we presuppose that the scholarly audience knows the particular meaning
in our particular context. However, both, the poet and the author of research
presentations often do not chart the reaction of the audience. Therefore, they can
never be sure about the degree and mode of understanding.
The magic in the poem ‘Eve Blossom’ [‘Anna Blume’] is the arrangement of the
words, the emphasis and the breaks between the words or the stanzas. Even the new
and surprising combination of words like the grammatically incorrect phrase ‘I love
thine’ [‘ich liebe dir’ (3)] or the illogical phrase ‘Blue is the colour of your yellow
hair’ [‘Blau ist die Farbe deines gelben Haares’ (19)] make us imagine the magic.
The magic in educational research sometimes issues from statistics. New combinations
and new methods seem to serve as ‘magic’ for the scholarly audience. In this
case the author produces her-/himself as an expert: an expert similar to the author of
a poem. Nobody would ask Kurt Schwitters to use grammar in a correct way and,
during an oral presentation few people would query the use of the statistical methods
(though they might do this after the presentation). Knowledge about statistical
methods is taken for granted in the scientific community. Most questions, therefore,
addressed from experts to the presenter, will focus on contents and not on basic
mathematical techniques and statistical procedures.
When describing the understanding of the scholarly audience of the research
presentation, which is similar to the understanding of a poem, we should also focus
upon the poems’ performance in a live setting. Some people in the audience have
an emotional response, others hear only the spoken words, and others primarily see
figures and concepts. There are people who reify empirical concepts viewing them
as real objects that exist outside the human brain. Indeed, most empirical or statistical
presentations discuss characteristics of functions and groups just as scientists
discuss the structure of physical materials. It can be said that the statistical and
even mathematicians’ perception of mathematical concepts is structural perception.
However, in mathematical textbooks we can find definitions that uncover a different
kind of perception: process-based perception. The latter is based on a dynamic
imagery of mathematical concepts. Sfard (1991) says that structural perception precedes
object perception. He describes the development from an operational to a