Intuitive Strategies and Preconceptions about Association in Contingency Tables

Abstract

The aim of this research was to identify students' preconceptions concerning statistical association in contingency tables. An experimental study was carried out with 213 preuniversity students, and it was based on students' responses to a written questionnaire including 2 × 2, 2 × 3, and 3 × 3 contingency tables. In this article, the students' judgments of association and solution strategies are compared with the findings of previous psychological research on 2 × 2 contingency tables. We also present an original classification of students' strategies, from a mathematical point of view. Correspondence analysis is used to show the effect of item task variables on students' strategies. Finally, we include a qualitative analysis of the strategies of 51 students, which has served to characterize three misconceptions concerning statistical association.