Much recent research and theorizing in the field of reasoning has been concerned with intuitive sensitivity to logical validity, such as the logic-brightness effect, in which logically valid arguments are judged to have a "brighter" typeface than invalid arguments. We propose and test a novel signal competition account of this…

This study examines the way teachers make sense of data in the context of high-stakes decision making, such as decisions related to student placement in educational tracks. Different types of data, data collected rationally and intuitively, may be used in this sensemaking process, and the same data may be interpreted in different ways by different…

Discusses the performance of Malaysian secondary school students on a probability concepts test covering various intuitive and taught probability concepts. Describes the establishment of a probability concepts hierarchy and considers probability understanding in relation to independent variables. Boys, Form Six students, and students with a higher…

This paper further develops an instructional method called here "process-object linking and embedding". The idea is to link the familiar mathematical processes to objects in a familiar situation, then re-embed the new link through mathematical symbols into their mathematical construction. It makes use of children's extra-mathematical,…

To investigate the origins and nature of intuitive obstacles affecting the learning of elementary probability theory, 618 Italian elementary and middle school students were interviewed about their methods of solution for several problems dealing with probability. The discussion focuses on four varieties of obstacles to learning prevalent within…