Probability from a socio-cultural perspective

Abstract

There exists considerable and rich literature on students’ misconceptions about probability; less attention has been paid to the development of students’ probabilistic thinking in the classroom. Grounded in an analysis of the literature, this article offers a lesson sequence for developing students’ probabilistic understanding. In particular, a context familiar to teachers—exploring compound events that occur in a game of chance—is presented, and it is demonstrated how the context can be used to explore the relationship between experimental and theoretical probabilities in a classroom setting. The approach integrates both the content and the language of probability and is grounded in socio-cultural theory.