Uncommon knowledge of a common phenomenon: intuitions and statistical thinking about gender birth ratio

• Published in: International journal of mathematical education in science and technology Vol. 44; no. 1; pp. 59 - 69
• Main Authors: Peled, Ofra N., Peled, Irit, Peled, Jonathan U.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Taylor & Francis Group 01.01.2013; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Births; cognitive conflict; Design of experiments; Gender; gender birth ratio; intuition; statistical thinking

The phenomenon of birth of a baby is a common and familiar one, and yet college students participating in a general biology class did not possess the expected common knowledge of the equal probability of gender births. We found that these students held strikingly skewed conceptions regarding gender...