Do children think of genetic inheritance as deterministic or probabilistic? In two novel tasks, children viewed the eye colors of animal parents and judged and selected possible phenotypes of offspring. Across three studies (N = 353, 162 girls, 172 boys, 2 non-binary; 17 did not report gender) with predominantly White U.S. participants collected…

Do children think of genetic inheritance as deterministic or probabilistic? In two novel tasks, children viewed the eye colors of animal parents and judged and selected possible phenotypes of offspring. Across three studies (N = 353, 162 girls, 172 boys, 2 non-binary; 17 did not report gender) with predominantly White U.S. participants collected…

A design experiment where students in Grade 5 (11-12 years old) play the Color Run game constitutes the context for investigating how students can be introduced to informal hypothesis testing. The result outlines a three-step hypothetical learning trajectory on informal hypothesis testing. In the first step, students came to favor sample space…

This article reports on a study in which third-grade students (8-9 years) were given a degree of agency in conducting chance experiments and representing the outcomes. Students chose their own samples of 12 coloured counters, ensuring all colours were represented. They predicted the outcomes of item selection, tested their predictions, explained…

According to the conceptual framework for K-grade 12 statistics education introduced in the 2007 Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) report, students can be located at one of three developmental levels of statistical literacy: A, B, or C. These levels are independent of age and grade level, so, in theory,…

Previous work has ostensibly shown that readers rapidly adapt to less predictable ambiguity resolutions after repeated exposure to unbalanced statistical input (e.g., a high number of reduced relative-clause garden-path sentences), and that these readers grow to disfavor the a priori more frequent (e.g. main verb) resolution after exposure (Fine,…

Existing approaches in the literature on cognitive control in conflict tasks almost exclusively target the outcome of control (by comparing mean congruency effects) and not the processes that shape control. These approaches are limited in addressing a current theoretical issue--what contribution does learning make to adjustments in cognitive…

We present an instructional approach to teaching causal inference using Bayesian networks and "do"-Calculus, which requires less prerequisite knowledge of statistics than existing approaches and can be consistently implemented in beginner to advanced levels courses. Moreover, this approach aims to address the central question in causal…

Learning from visual representations is enhanced when learners appropriately integrate corresponding visual and verbal information. This study examined the effects of two methods of promoting integration, color coding and labeling, on learning about probabilistic reasoning from a table and text. Undergraduate students (N = 98) were randomly…