Investigates the effectiveness of utilizing analogies to effect conceptual change in students' alternative-probability concepts. Results indicate that analogies can be effective in producing desired conceptual change in high school students' probability concepts. (Author/CCM)

Determines the theoretical probability that a regular polygon will cross a crack when dropped onto floorboards. By following two special cases, a pattern emerges that enables students to consider the general case. (ASK)

Presents an activity in which the subject is the identity of the team in the greatest jeopardy of becoming the big loser in a basketball tournament. Explores several facts about the big loser, offering them in a hierarchy appropriate for creating various short- and long-term projects for a high school mathematics class. (ASK)

Describes the conditional probability methods (positive/negative predictive power, sensitivity, and specificity) used to differentiate children, judged by teachers as belonging to Social Competence (SC) or Low Social Competence (LSC) groups. Large differences were found in the number of social skills predicting LSC group membership for females and…

Examines the "sedimented" history of probability in America using Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve." Suggests this model reinforces ethnic hierarchy and differences by creating a "moral cartography" for the nation. Defines this spatial rhetoric with three sociographic dynamics. Concludes with…

Proposes a new training approach to teach effective statistical thinking and describes two studies where people were trained to solve tasks involving conjunctive and conditional probabilities using a frequency grid. Discusses frequency format versus probability format, and describes results that suggest the importance of learning by doing.…

Describes an activity on probability to serve mathematics and science objectives while including the use of art in a game. (ASK)

Discusses the nature of information measuring its distance from the perfect theory or from the right answer to the information seeking question that led to it. The measures here are provided by the Tichy-Hilpinen-Oddie-Niiniluoto-likeness measures introduced in the context of the philosophical problem of verisimilitude. (JAK)

This article addresses issues in model building and statistical inference in the context of student modeling. The use of probability-based reasoning to explicate hypothesized and empirical relationships and to structure inference in the context of proportional reasoning tasks is discussed. Ideas are illustrated with an example concerning…

Three experiments examined whether preschoolers viewed outcomes of familiar causes of illness as definite or probabilistic. Findings indicated that children judged that a common cause would affect all group members the same, and believed they could definitely predict illness outcomes in a single case, contrasting with adults' variable and…

Suggests an approach in courses for mathematics majors and minors similar to the popular approach used in applied courses--using student projects. Describes strategy and implementation of the projects and provides examples from student projects on statistics. (Author/ASK)

Discusses methods to be used in an adaptive filtering task, in which incoming documents are routed to users according to stored profiles. Highlights include decision thresholds to help in the retrieval decision; probability of relevance; calibration and logistic regression; feedback; and examples in the Okapi text retrieval system. (LRW)

A review of 32 epidemiological surveys of autism and pervasive developmental disorders found four surveys yielded estimates for childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD) ranging from 1.1 to 6.4 per 100,000. It is concluded that CDD is very rare and its prevalence is 60 times less than that of autistic disorder. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Explains a non-standard definition of an ellipse familiar to astronomers and workers in celestial mechanics but which is not usually given in undergraduate text books on mathematics. (MM)

Extends the recent work on the veracity effect in deception detection. Explains the probabilistic nature of a receiver's accuracy in detecting deception and analyzes a receiver's detection of deception in terms of set theory and conditional probability. Finds that accuracy is shown to be a function of the relevant conditional probability and the…