The Effect of a Program of Guided Learning Experiences in Developing Probability Concepts at the Third Grade Level

Abstract

IN THE development of a scientific-causal or iI entation by a child toward his environment both J physical and social the ability to think in proba bility terms plays a significant part. In any com plex phenomenon, such as an instance of human be havior, the factors which underlie and produce the behavior are manifold. Furthermore, information about these factors, as is the case with all empiri cal knowledge of the social and physical world, is characterized by greater or lesser unreliability and this characteristic has to be recognized when using knowledge to estimate the probable way in which the behavior developed or what its effects may be. When a child is confronted with an instance of be havior, such as when his teacher does something and he has to respond to it, a logical reaction would require him to think of some of the probable rea sons for the teacher's action instead ofmaking a snap judgment about it. There is some evidence that children's understanding and appreciation of the dynamics of behavior can be extended through a learning program in behavioral science and that such experiences help them in their daily interac tions (10, 12, 13). In developing an understanding of behavior, how ever, the concept of probability constitutes an im portant item. To increase the effectiveness of such programs, it appears helpful to investigate further how the ability to think in probability terms can be developed most effectively. The purpose of this study was to devise a program of guided experi ences for helping a child learn the elementary as pects of probability and to test the effectiveness of this program at the third-grade level. In recent years a number of investigators have been interested in probability concepts of children (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19). Most of these have been concerned with the effects of extrin sic rewards on reactions at various input levels (2, 6, 8, 15, 16, 19). The investigation by Stevenson and Zigler (18) compared behavior of children com ing from two types of environments which differed in the degree of success the children had learned to expect. The present investigation differs from these in that it is interested in testing the effects of a con sciously planned sequence of guided experiences de rived from an analysis of the nature of the learning task and of the learners, as will be described later.