Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Education Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2015

Numeracy

Curriculum and Instruction

Medical diagnosis problem

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Education

Numeracy Infusion Course For Higher Education (Niche), 2: Development Of Students' Bayesian Reasoning Skill, Frank Wang Jul 2015

Numeracy Infusion Course For Higher Education (Niche), 2: Development Of Students' Bayesian Reasoning Skill, Frank Wang

Numeracy

Gerd Gigerenzer's technique of frequency representations for solving the medical diagnosis problem, mammography problem, and other Bayesian reasoning problems is summarized in this paper. Such a method has been introduced to community college students in an elementary statistics course. With repeated practice, many community college students can acquire the skill and avoid reported judgment errors that are commonly committed by medical professionals. However, weaknesses in basic skills such as percentage calculations prevent some students from obtaining the correct probability.


Numeracy Infusion Course For Higher Education (Niche), 1: Teaching Faculty How To Improve Students' Quantitative Reasoning Skills Through Cognitive Illusions, Frank Wang, Esther I. Wilder Jul 2015

Numeracy Infusion Course For Higher Education (Niche), 1: Teaching Faculty How To Improve Students' Quantitative Reasoning Skills Through Cognitive Illusions, Frank Wang, Esther I. Wilder

Numeracy

We describe one of the eight units of a professional development program, the Numeracy Infusion Course for Higher Education (NICHE), which introduces research on cognition, including dual-processing theories, to university faculty. Under the dual-processing framework, System 1 (intuition) quickly proposes intuitive answers to judgment problems as they arise, while System 2 (deliberation) monitors the quality of these proposals, which it may endorse, correct, or override. We present several classic questions that demonstrate the pitfalls of overreliance on intuition without analytical thinking, then describe faculty participants’ responses to these questions and their ideas on how to apply cognitive illusion research to …