The study investigated the probabilistic misconceptions of Chinese students, and whether selected misconceptions could be overcome through a focused teaching intervention. A questionnaire was given to a 567 Chinese students from grades 6, 8 and 12 and two streams (advanced and ordinary). In addition 64 of the students were interviewed. Fourteen groups of misconceptions were identified. The SOLO taxonomy was used in this study to describe students' hierarchical understanding levels on the concept of probability. It was found that, generally there was no improvement in developmental level from grades 6 and 8, the two grades without any formal probability training. Grade 12 students have a better understanding than the younger students. The results of the activity-based short-term teaching programme with grade 8 students show that even a short intervention can help students overcome some of their misconceptions.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education