Abstract
Concerns about the influence of misconceptions, culture and social setting on probabilistic reasoning of teacher trainees led to a study in this area to explore the reasoning of preservice teachers from a college of education in Ghana. This study investigates preservice teachers’ misconceptions and difficulties in probabilistic problems solving before they learn Elementary Stochastic as part of their course of studies. The identification of preservice teachers’ misconceptions will serve as a reference point for planning and enactment of lessons for effective training of teachers. The study employed explanatory sequential mixed methods research design. The participants in this study were 181 level 200 female preservice teachers offering a Diploma in Basic Education. Diagnostic test and semi-structured interview were used to collect data. Data collected were analysed descriptively. Also, content analysis was employed to analyse some parts of the data collected. The results indicate that preservice teachers had some probability difficulties such as conceptual difficulties, interpretation difficulties, and procedural difficulties. Similarly, the study found that preservice teachers entered college with the following probability misconceptions: equiprobability bias, representativeness bias, negative and positive recency effects, outcome orientation bias, and belief bias. This study shows the need for teaching and learning activities to focus on addressing probability misconceptions and difficulties in order to developed better probabilistic reasoning of preservice teachers.
Highlights
Probabilistic reasoning is important in decision-making (Kang & Park, 2019)
The probability difficulties and misconceptions that are frequent in the literature are conceptual difficulties, interpretation difficulties, procedural difficulties, equiprobability bias misconception, representativeness bias misconception, negative and positive recency effects misconception, outcome orientation bias misconception and belief bias misconception (see e.g., Ang & Shahrill, 2014; Hokor et al / Pedagogical Research, 7(1), em0112
The data collected through diagnostic tests and interviews were analyzed to answer the research question “What are preservice teachers’ probabilistic reasoning difficulties and misconceptions?” The research question was aimed at revealing the probabilistic misconceptions and difficulties of preservice teachers before they take Stochastic Course at a College of Education in Ghana
Summary
Probabilistic reasoning is important in decision-making (Kang & Park, 2019). Teachers, Lawyers, Preservice Teachers, and many others often have to make judgments about the likelihood or chance of their actions resulting in the meaningful end. Bryant and Nunes (2012) asserted that, “this reasoning allows us to work out the probability of particular outcomes, and to understand the risks and possible benefits of acting in one way rather than another” (p. 3). The concept of probability is part of the mathematics curriculum for colleges in many countries such as Ghana, Spain, China, Germany, USA, and so on. Many countries have made probability an integral part of the school curriculum because the ability to make judgments under uncertainty is becoming part of basic literacy globally (Bílek et al, 2018; Morsanyi & Szucs, 2014). The current way of training teachers does not provide essential skills needed to teach probability effectively (Khazanov & Prado, 2010; Morsanyi et al, 2013) and most training college students have probability misconceptions (Khazanov & Gourgey, 2009; Masel et al, 2015; Tenenbaum et al, 2011; Triliana & Asih, 2019). The probability difficulties and misconceptions that are frequent in the literature are conceptual difficulties, interpretation difficulties, procedural difficulties, equiprobability bias misconception, representativeness bias misconception, negative and positive recency effects misconception, outcome orientation bias misconception and belief bias misconception (see e.g., Ang & Shahrill, 2014; Hokor et al / Pedagogical Research, 7(1), em0112
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