Every student should work at mastering grade-appropriate skills in critical thinking. Critical thinking focuses on identifying and evaluating arguments supporting the truth of disputable claims. Critical thinking focuses on both deductive and inductive arguments. Inductive arguments focus heavily on explanations, the distinction between reasons and causes, and the distinction between association and causation. Every student should work at mastering grade-appropriate skills in statistical literacy.
Statistical literacy is critical thinking about statistics as evidence for inferences.
Statistical literacy should give students the ability to describe, compare and interpret statistics contained in tables and graphs. Statistical literacy should give students the ability to evaluate the strength of statistics as evidence in arguments about causation. Statistical Literacy should focus more on descriptive statistics and modeling than on statistical inference. JSM ASA Power Point Slides of Talks Reading Tables of Rates and Percentages . APDU Conference, October, 1999.