Mathematically oriented PSMTs exhibit equiprobability and insensitivity-to-prior-probability biases¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · qualitative r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2021 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2026: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? PSMTs relying on theoretical probability judged giving birth to a girl equally likely as a boy and ignored base-rate gender frequencies, showing equiprobability and insensitivity to prior probability biases. → Elbehary 2021

Evidence¶

Elbehary 2021¶

Elbehary, S.G.A. (2021). Reasoning under uncertainty within the context of probability education: A case study of preservice mathematics teachers. Pythagoras, 42(1), a630. https://doi.org/10.4102/pythagoras.v42i1.630

q2 · i? · qualitative · r2

Qualitative case study coding of 68 PSMTs' questionnaire responses in NVivo. M thinkers judged the girl's probability equal to a boy's, and the article reports this 'maintained the equiprobable bias', hindering reflection on actual gender distribution (boys-to-girls ratio 1.06 at birth in Egypt).

"M thinkers also maintained the equiprobable bias (Lecoutre & Fischbein, 1998; Savard, 2014), since they judged the possibility of giving birth to a girl to be equal to a boy"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Statistical Reasoning — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Attributing outcomes to Allah's will among some PSMTs functioned as probabilistic reasoning, not mere personalist belief — related
• Subjectively oriented reasoning emerged in the giving-birth context but disappeared in the die-rolling task — related
• Some outcome-oriented PSMTs (types o and o) predict single-trial outcomes, and type o thinkers conflate causality with conditionality — related
• A bias-free experimental-probability subcategory (o**) emerged only in the die-rolling task — related