Probabilistic Thinking for Life: The Decision-Making Ability of Professionals in Uncertain Situations

Abstract

Although most experts in the field believe that the study of probability would equip people in making good decisions, they have overlooked the need to examine professionals’ decision-making ability in their daily activities after many years of probability studies. This study explored four non-mathematics teachers who studied probability at High and Primary schools. It appears no one has written about this topic. Despite this scholarly neglect, this study explains the need for research in the area and offers an initial interpretation of this new area. The study contends that understanding people who studied probability at least 13-years ago could provide us with insight on how people use probability in making decisions on uncertain situations and to inform the teaching of probability. Content analysis was done on the recorded data. The participants’ response to tasks and questions revealed their inability to apply probabilistic skills in uncertain situations. The participants appear to be either overconfident or making choices out of habit, without a critical assessment of the various possibilities and their consequences. This study calls for a ‘cross-examination approach’ in the development of probabilistic thinking skills among students.

Learning obstacle of probability learning based on the probabilistic thinking level

“…Probability is the science of randomness and uncertainty (Hokor, 2023;Armiati et al, 2022). Probability is also related to an event's sample point and sample space (Prihartini et al, 2020).…”

“…Randomness is the lack of pattern or predictability in events or when a sequence of events has no order and does not follow a reasonable pattern. Random events cannot be predicted with certainty (Hokor, 2023).…”

“…The reasoning about uncertainties is termed probabilistic reasoning. Probabilistic reasoning is the "way people reason about uncertain situations and make decisions based on the likely outcomes" (Hokor, 2023). Bryant & Nunes (2012) asserted that "this reasoning allows us to work out the probability of particular outcomes, and thus to understand the risks and possible benefits of acting in one way rather than another."…”

“…The ability to identify the most likely outcomes of uncertainty constitutes probabilistic thinking. Figure 1 presents a model for probabilistic thinking (Hokor, 2023). Jones et al (1997) conducted a two-year study of children's probabilistic thinking and postulated that four types of probabilistic thinking exist: subjective, transitional, informal, quantitative, and numerical.…”