• School Mathematics
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.423-446
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• 2015

This study aims to look into the characteristics of argumentation in the task context of 'Monty Hall problem' at a high school probability class. As a result of an analysis of classroom discourses on the argumentation between teachers and second-year students in one upper level class in high school using Toulmin's argument pattern, it was found that it would be important to create a task context and a safe classroom culture in which the students could ask questions and refute them in order to make it an argument-centered discourse community. In addition, through the argumentation of solving complex problems together, the students could be further engaged in the class, and the actual empirical context enriched the understanding of concepts. However, reasoning in argumentation was mostly not a statistical one, but a mathematical one centered around probability problem-solving. Through these results of the study, it was noted that the teachers should help the students actively participate in argumentation through the task context and question, and an understanding of a statistical reasoning of interpreting the context would be necessary in order to induce their thinking and reasoning about probability and statistics.