Using analogies to produce long term conceptual change: Overcoming high school mathematics students' probability misconceptions

Anchoring probability situations which are conceptually analogous to misconception-prone/target probability situations were generated and tested with secondary mathematics students. The testing showed that probability misconceptions were common but also that anchors for overcoming these misconceptions could be generated. Anchoring situations were effectively utilized in overcoming students' probability misconceptions in the short term. A follow-up study showed that short term effects were retained at the rate of 0.65 over a six month period thereby establishing the long term effectiveness of the approach.