CCSS.Math.Content.HSS-IC.A
The standard
Understand and evaluate random processes underlying statistical experiments
Common Core State Standards for Mathematics · High School — Statistics and Probability
What this standard means
Students need to understand why randomness matters in surveys, experiments, and simulations. They should recognize when random selection or random assignment is being used, what it protects against, and how it affects the conclusions we can make.
Mastery looks like explaining whether a study design is fair and what kind of claim it supports. Students often mix up random selection with random assignment. They also may think a larger sample fixes a biased method, or that any study with numbers proves cause and effect.
Ways to teach it
- Have students draw colored cubes from bags using random and nonrandom methods, then compare how well each method estimates the bag contents.
- Ask students to explain whether a phone poll of only weekday morning callers can represent all voters, and what could improve it.
- Show three short study descriptions and have students label each as sample survey, experiment, or simulation with one sentence of justification.
- Use a sports injury study or school lunch survey and ask what conclusion is reasonable based on how the data were collected.
Plan a lesson for CCSS.Math.Content.HSS-IC.A
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Related standards
- CCSS.Math.Content.HSS-CP.A
Understand independence and conditional probability and use them to interpret data
- CCSS.Math.Content.HSS-IC.A.1
Understand statistics as a process for making inferences about population parameters based on a random sample from that population.
- CCSS.Math.Content.6.SP.A
Develop understanding of statistical variability.
- CCSS.Math.Content.7.SP.C
Investigate chance processes and develop, use, and evaluate probability models.