"Forty-eight sutdents with no previous exposure to probability or statistics read one of three texts that varied in the emphasis placed on rote and conceptual learning of basic concepts of elementary probability. A qualitative analysis of errors on a postinstruction test employed a model of problem solving whose stages were categorization of the problem, retrieval of the appropriate formula, and translation of values from the problem into the formula. Variations in performance on problems requiring the same formula for solution were largely attributable to surface features that affected the ease of categorization and translation. Students who read a text that emphasized conceptual learning tended to be less sensitive to surface features, which parallels results regarding novices and experts in various content domains."
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