POSTER TITLE: Exploring the meanings of randomness and its links with causality in STEM classrooms

THEME: Educational tools and interventions

ABSTRACT:
Understanding cause-and-effect and the probabilistic thinking that it entails unites scientific fields and is essential to the successful application of scientific principles in the real world. The words “random” and “by chance” have distinct uses, ranging from referring to a certain probability, departing from an expected probability distribution, to lacking pattern or intent. The different meanings create difficulties in both teaching and learning about probabilistic events. In a pilot study, out of fifteen student groups, only five groups identified the most common meaning of mutation as being random and five groups explained how causal variables may account for effects in a research study that are said to be “due to chance”. Sorting through the complexity of these different meanings provides an oft-missed opportunity to invite students to think more deeply about the concepts and how causal factors are involved. For example, what combination of causes lead to die’s fall to be with equal probability on each side? Even though we teach students that mutations are random while natural selection is not, aren’t there ways in which mutations are not random, and aren’t there random processes involved in selection? We will present a unifying framework for thinking about cause-and-effect (and its companion, randomness) that can be used across scientific disciplines. We hope to initiate a discussion of what a more cohesive math and science curriculum would look like for students to encounter causal and probabilistic thinking in a coherent way throughout the curriculum to support learning of central scientific concepts.