ICOTS-7, 2006: Kazak and Confrey (Refereed) 1 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ INFORMAL AND INTUITIVE CONCEPTIONS OF PROBABILITY AND DISTRIBUTION

Data and chance are the two related topics that deal with uncertainty. On the discussions of probability and statistics in both research and instruction, the existing literature depicts an artificial separation, to which other researchers (Shaughnessy, 2003; Steinbring, 1991) have already called attention in recognition of the inseparable nature of data and chance. Hence, this paper addresses how to integrate the discussions of distributions and probability, starting from the elementary grades. We report on a study that examines fourth-grade students’ informal and intuitive conceptions of probability and distribution through a sequence of tasks for developing their understandings about probability distributions. These tasks include various random situations that students explore with a set of physical chance mechanisms and that can be modeled by a binomial probability distribution.