Random-walk conceptions of performance, aspirations, and risk preferences are used to model a pattern of risk taking responsive to a risk taker's changing fortune. The impact of adaptive aspirations and attention focus on risk taking over time is explored for cohorts and a renewing population of risk takers. (SLD)

Discusses students' preconceptions of randomness and offers an alternative way to think about the concept using the idea of complexity. That is, the randomness of a sequence can be measured by the difficulty of encoding it. Methods of judging complexity and implications for teaching are discussed. (Contains 30 references.) (MKR)

A decision field theory is proposed and used to explain motivational and cognitive mechanisms that guide the deliberation process involved in decisions made under uncertainty. Decision theories are extended into the stochastic-dynamic category. The proposed theory is compared with four other theories of decision making under uncertainty. (SLD)

Presents an educational game on probability that can be the starting point for an open-ended statistical project. (ASK)

Investigated relationships among different types of errors occurring during probability problem solving by 50 graduate students without mathematical sophistication. Categorized errors as text comprehension, conceptual, procedural, and arithmetic/computation errors. Discusses implications for the teaching and learning of probability problem…

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…