Recency Effects in Primary-Age Children and College Students

Francesca Chiesi; Caterina Primi

doi:10.29333/iejme/240

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Francesca Chiesi, Caterina Primi

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Abstract

We investigate the evolution of probabilistic reasoning with age and some related biases, such as the negative/positive recency effects. Primary school children and college students were presented with probability tasks in which they were asked to estimate the likelihood of the next occurring event after a sequence of independent outcomes. Results indicate that older children perform better than younger children and college students. Concerning biases, the positive recency effect decreases with age whereas no age-related differences are found for the negative recency effect. Theoretical and educational implications of results are discussed.

Keywords

Probabilistic reasoning
recency effects
primary school children
college students

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

INT ELECT J MATH ED, Volume 4, Issue 3, October 2009, 259-279

https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/240

Publication date: 12 Dec 2009

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How to cite this article

APA

Chiesi, F., & Primi, C. (2009). Recency Effects in Primary-Age Children and College Students. International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education, 4(3), 259-279. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/240

Vancouver

Chiesi F, Primi C. Recency Effects in Primary-Age Children and College Students. INT ELECT J MATH ED. 2009;4(3):259-79. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/240

AMA

Chiesi F, Primi C. Recency Effects in Primary-Age Children and College Students. INT ELECT J MATH ED. 2009;4(3), 259-279. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/240

Chicago

Chiesi, Francesca, and Caterina Primi. "Recency Effects in Primary-Age Children and College Students". International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education 2009 4 no. 3 (2009): 259-279. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/240

Harvard

Chiesi, F., and Primi, C. (2009). Recency Effects in Primary-Age Children and College Students. International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education, 4(3), pp. 259-279. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/240

MLA

Chiesi, Francesca et al. "Recency Effects in Primary-Age Children and College Students". International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education, vol. 4, no. 3, 2009, pp. 259-279. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/240