Inconsistencies in students' reasoning about probability

Subjects were asked to select from among four possible sequences the "most likely" to result from flipping a coin five times. Contrary to the results of Kahneman and Tversky(1972), the majority of subjects (72%) correctly answered that the sequences are equally likely to occur. This result suggests, as does performance on similar NAEP items, that most secondary school and college-age students view successive outcomes of a random process as independent.