Most traditional models, frameworks, and findings that apply to the majority of students and faculty do not adequately apply to important subpopulations. The recommendations here will help researchers become more sensitive to the nuances among various educational subgroups, and to pay more attention to outliers.

Investigated the effects of different types of risk information in a simulated decision-making task to test the predictions of protection motivation theory. College students (N=226) completed the task. Results showed outcome severity, efficacy of protection, and access to protection were related to protective decisions. (BH)

Examined the problem-solving performances of novices (11 undergraduates) and experts (9 graduate students and instructors), comparing them in terms of background expertise and problem-solving success. Also examined problem-solving behaviors reported in other domains and determined whether or not genetics is a fruitful area for problem-solving…

The purpose of the study was to determine whether students had knowledge of the extension rule (the conjunction of two or more events cannot be greater than the probability of any one of those events) and understanding of conjunction by giving a test of multiplicative probabilities. Involved were 598 students enrolled in introductory psychology…

Four experiments investigated college students' judgments of inter-event contingency. Subjects were asked to judge the effect of a discrete response (tapping a wire) on the occurrence of a brief outcome (a radio's buzzing). Pairings of the possible event-state combinations were presented in a summary table, an unbroken time line, or a broken time…

The explicit, experimental introduction of a series of logical inconsistencies is described and recommended as a means of disrupting the faulty logic and, thereby, enhancing the use of more appropriate probabilistic reasoning by graduate students enrolled in an introductory inferential statistics course. (14 references) (JJK)

Investigated are three misconceptions of probability and the differential effect of two activity-based instructional units. Response categories (law of averages, law of small numbers, and availability) are identified. Treatment differences (evaluation or no evaluation) appear to influence subjects' interpretations of the information. (YP)

Results of the most recent administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) suggest that the majority of secondary students believe in the independence of random events. In the study reported here, a high percentage of high school and college students answered similar problems correctly. However, about half of the students…

Forty-eight students with no previous exposure to probability or statistics read one of three textbooks that varied in emphasis placed on rote and conceptual learning of basic elementary probability concepts. Findings, among others, show students who read textbooks emphasizing conceptual learning tended to be less sensitive to surface features.…

A general approach is proposed for modeling the structure of a two-way contingency table, and for drawing inferences about the marginal and interaction effects, cell parameters, and conditional probabilities. The prior distribution expresses uncertainty in a simple reduced model, in particular the independence model. The posterior estimates of the…

Past research indicates poor agreement about strategies people use to assess covariation between events. This research investigates method of assessment as one possible source of this low consensus. A set of problems was developed in such a way that different judgment rules would produce different decisions about the relationships between events.…

Describes advances in capture-recapture modeling, including the biologically motivated emphasis on model-based hypothesis testing and the development of models for spatially stratified populations. Discusses the severe problems associated with count statistics reflecting unknown sampling fractions. (67 references) (KR)

The decision making processes of children in a probabilistic environment were studied within the context of the theory of signal detection (TSD). The relationship between the age of the child and his ability to revise decision criteria was examined, as well as the appropriateness of TSD measures and methodology with children. It was hypothesized…

Three versions of a probabilistic model adapted from the theory of information retrieval--a binary version, a version using the full value of the data, and a version using principal components--were tested and applied to data available from application forms to predict graduate school performance of library school students. (EM)

The concept of probability is not an easy concept for high school and college students to understand. This paper identifies and analyzes the students' alternative frameworks from the viewpoint of constructivism. There are various interpretations of probability through mathematical history: classical, frequentist, and subjectivist interpretation.…