Statistical Inference in School Textbooks. An Approach to Statistical Thinking

[Objective] The main purpose of this study was to analyze the activities related to statistical inference present in secondary education textbooks in Chile, and their relationship to the development of statistical thinking. [Methodology] For the purposes of the study, a qualitative approach was used through a content analysis of the secondary education books disseminated free of charge by the Chilean Ministry of Education during the years 2016, 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022, which were selected using intentional nonprobabilistic sampling. [Results] Among the main results obtained, it was found that most of the activities related to statistical inference in the textbooks analyzed had to do with procedures related to the calculation of confidence intervals, without addressing their interpretation in the context of the problem. In addition, it was observed that there were few activities related to informal inference. Likewise, the activities and questions presented in the textbooks do not refer to the formulation of hypotheses or conjectures about the sample data made to guide the formulation of conclusions related to statistical inference. [Conclusions] The findings indicate that despite the fact that confidence intervals are among the topics related to statistical inference in the textbooks, these textbooks are not focused on decision-making at the population level, but rather on description.