Exploring One Student's Intuitive Ideas About Chance Using TinkerPlots

Wright, S., Watson, J., & Fitzallen, N. (2019).
Exploring one student’s intuitive ideas about chance

using TinkerPlots. Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom, 24(1), 23-29.
Exploring one student’s intuitive ideas about chance using TinkerPlots
Suzie Wright, Jane Watson, and Noleine Fitzallen

University of Tasmania
The intersection of the “real” world and mathematics when dealing with uncertainty can
present challenges for beginners. At one extreme, in the real world we talk about the
informal chance of many kinds of events, such as our team winning a game, going to the
movies on the weekend, getting the flu, or going shopping. At the other extreme,
mathematics provides us with a way of precisely calculating theoretical probabilities for
specific events. Between these two extremes there are opportunities to plan activities and
carry out trials to give estimates of the chances of a particular outcome of a real-world
event, or to find out if a particular random-generator reflects the theoretical probability we
expect from mathematics. A series of activities using 2- and 4-colour spinners with equally
likely outcomes was trialled on a Year 4 student. Concrete, hands-on materials were first
introduced before moving to a computerised random-generator. Of interest was the
student’s understanding of chance-related concepts and her development across the
activities.
Background
In real-world contexts the informal language we use to express the chance of events includes
words or phrases like “a slim chance,” “probably,” “once in a blue moon,” “unlikely,” and
“almost certain.” Sometimes a numerical expression is associated with these phrases, such as
“it’s a one in a million chance,” or “there is a 40% chance of rain.” These expressions are based
on an intuitive understanding of the event or context. In mathematics, probability is a
theoretical way of analysing uncertainty and chance. It gives a numerical measure of the
likelihood of an event, reflecting the proportion of times the event is expected to occur, and is
based on mathematical properties and relationships that exist among specific events.
The question of what happens when we try to apply the theoretical probability model to
a real-world situation involves variation. Playing a game spinning a fair 4-colour spinner with
equal segments once will only produce one of the four colour outcomes. Picking any colour,
we have a 25% chance or probability of landing on it. We might also label this with chance
language, such as “not very likely.” But what is likely to happen if we play the game again or
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Wright, S., Watson, J., & Fitzallen, N. (2019). Exploring one student’s intuitive ideas about chance
several times? We expect different colours, but experience tells us that they are unlikely to
occur exactly once every four spins. What can we expect after many, many spins?
“Random” is the term we often use to describe the variation that occurs in repeated spins
of the spinner. Random, in statistics however, encompasses more than the variation we may
initially observe. Randomness arises in processes that have unpredictable individual outcomes
but display regular patterns of outcomes over the long term (Moore, 1990; Watson, Fitzallen,
& Carter, 2013). There are hence two important aspects to appreciating genuine random
behaviour:
1. the variation or uncertainty experienced for outcomes at the beginning of the process,
and
2. the expectation of a regular pattern of outcomes after many repetitions.
These two aspects, variation and expectation, are in fact the two fundamental big ideas of
statistics (Watson, 2007) and underpin a third big idea of randomness (Watson et al., 2013).
Many trials can be used to test devices, such as a 4-colour spinner, to see if they fairly represent
the theoretical probability (e.g., 25% for each colour). Initially a small number of trials is likely
to produce estimates very different from 25%. If the spinner is fair (not biased in any way,
such as the way it is spun), then as the number of trials increases, the percentage of each colour
should approach 25%. Although the word “chance” is often used colloquially to reflect only
the variation aspect of a repeated event happening, in the classroom it is important to build a
further appreciation of the expectation aspect of random chance events. This is the
understanding that underpins the relationship of the real world of statistics and the
mathematical world of probability.
The pilot
This article reports on a small pilot study to assess a series of spinner activities to be used as
part of an Australian Research Council funded project, Modelling with Data: Advancing STEM
in the Primary Curriculum. The classroom spinner activities are intended to create awareness
of both aspects of randomness in relation to variation and expectation. As others report (e.g.,
Kim, 2010; Sampson, 2004), pilot studies are invaluable as a means of pre-testing or trying out
activities before introducing them to the main research participants. In this case, the authors
decided to pilot the spinner activities with a child of similar age to the students in the research
project. The Year 4 student, Sophia, was introduced to the activities by the first author in an
informal teaching situation with the aim to guide her through the activities using hands-on
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spinners (Figure 1) before moving to a computerised random-generator (Figure 2). Two- and
four-colour spinners with equal segments the same as the hands-on spinners were created using
TinkerPlots (Konold & Miller, 2015), a data exploration tool that enables students to run many
trials with an increasing number of spins over a short period of time. The intention was to set
the scene and primarily pilot the computer-generated spinners on a student with no prior
experience of TinkerPlots. The students in the main research project had had some experience
using TinkerPlots but had not yet been exposed to the random Sampler. The assumption was
that if a novice could use and build understanding from the random Sampler set up as a spinner,
more experienced students would also be able to use TinkerPlots to explore the chance- and
probability-related concepts. Sophia’s development across the activities was also of interest.
Figure 1. The 2- and 4-colour spinners used in the trial.
Figure 2. Sophia using a computer-generated spinner.
Teaching sequence and key discussion points
3
Throughout the casual teaching session with Sophia, informal chance language was used, and
questions asked to gauge her understanding about variation (uncertainty) and expectation. Key
discussion moments are presented here, and, where appropriate, reference is made to the
Australian Curriculum (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
[ACARA], 2018) and other relevant literature to support claims by the authors.
1. Introduction to the hands-on spinner

The casual interaction between Sophia and the first author, or interviewer (I), began with the
introduction of the 2-colour spinner shown in Figure 1.
I: What is the chance you will spin the spinner and it will land on Black?
Sophia: Half
I: What do you mean by “half”?
Sophia: Half, or 50 out of 100.
I: Why do you think it would be half or 50 out of 100?
Sophia: Because it’s split evenly. If we did it out of 100, it would be 50:50. I don’t
know, but the best way to find out is to do it.
I: How many times should we do it?
Sophia: We can do 20.
Sophia was given the spinner and the interviewer recorded the outcome of each spin (Figure
3). To help Sophia consider a potential pattern developing, two different methods of recording
were used: a tally was kept, and each spin was recorded as either w (White) or b (Black).
I: What happened when you did the 20 spins?
Sophia: White won!
I: Was this what you expected to happen?
Sophia: No. It should have been half.
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Figure 3. Results of the first trial of 20 spins.
Sophia’s initial discussion showed an intuitive understanding of the theoretical

probability of equally likely outcomes: she expected the outcome to be an even split between
White and Black. When questioned further, however, Sophia also showed some appreciation
of the variation aspect of randomness.
I: If we did more spins, what do you think would happen?
Sophia: White would still win. But it depends on the spinner.
When asked to clarify this last statement, Sophia commented on the spinning mechanism as
well as how the person spins it (e.g., which part of the arrow is pushed). Sophia recognised
that the outcome could not be predicted, that it was not certain. This understanding was
evidenced in Sophia’s comments following the outcome of the next trial in which the spinner
landed on Black 12 times and on White only eight times.
See, I told you it depended on the spinner. Black won this time. … If we did another
20, I think White would win. It’s going in a sort of odd pattern. White, Black, White,
Black.
When asked specifically about what she expected to happen, Sophia reverted to her original
prediction that the outcome should be an even split but was unable to explain why this did not
happen.
I: What did you expect to happen?
Sophia: Half. Like at the start I thought it would be half each.
I: Why didn’t it turn out half and half?
Sophia: Don’t know.
As a lead in to using the computer-generated spinners the idea of a larger number of trials
was discussed briefly with Sophia. As noted in the literature (e.g., Watson & English, 2013),
increasing the number of trials increases the closeness of the approximation to the theoretical
probability: in this case, 50% Black and 50% White. Sophia expressed an intuitive
understanding of this concept by the way in which she expressed her expectation of what would
happen and her uncertainty in the outcome.
I: What do you think would happen if we did 50 spins?
Sophia: One would still have more. It wouldn’t be 50:50.
I: If we did 50 spins, do you think it would get closer to being 50:50?
Sophia: Yes
I: Why do you think this would happen?
Sophia: Because you do more spins, so it is more likely to happen that it gets closer.
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I: Ok, but can you tell me why this might happen?

Sophia: I don’t know.
2. Introduction to a computer-generated spinner

The Mathematics section of the Australian Curriculum suggests students be given
opportunities to “conduct chance experiments with both small and large numbers of trials using
appropriate digital technologies” (ACARA, 2018, ACMSP145). Accordingly, a 2-colour
spinner was created in TinkerPlots to mirror the hands-on spinner (refer to Figure 4). An initial
trial of 20 spins was run using the slowest speed, again to imitate the experience of using a
hands-on spinner and to allow Sophia the opportunity to observe the results being transferred
to the Table, an example of which is in Figure 4.
Figure 4. The 2-colour spinner created in TinkerPlots and an example of a Table of results.
When asked to predict the outcome of the first trial of 20 spins if the results were tallied,
Sophia commented, “Black would win. I’m only guessing. I hope Black would win.” Sophia’s
response is typical of students her age (e.g., Watson, Collis, & Moritz, 1997). Her guess was
based on personal preference, her favourite colour, but a level of uncertainty was evident in the
acknowledgment that her answer was a guess.
TinkerPlots allows data to be easily displayed in a Plot (e.g., Figure 5). As luck (or chance)
would have it, the result of the first trial was an even split. Sophia expressed surprise at this
outcome, “We got half! 10 and 10!”, but when asked if she thought this would happen every
time, her comments show an appreciation of the random nature of the spinner: “No, because
the spinner’s not meant to do it every time. But it can. It might but might not.” Additional trials
6
of 20 spins were run with outcomes that did not fit the theoretical probability, thus helping to
reinforce Sophia’s appreciation of the randomness of chance events.
Figure 5. Plot showing the outcome of Sophia’s first trial using the random sampler.
Given the opportunity to run trials with a greater number of spins, Sophia chose 26. She
determined the expected outcome for 26 spins (13 for each colour) and ran the trial. As with
the first trial of 20 spins, an even split was achieved, again causing surprise, but the next trial
resulted in a win for Black (Black 15, White 11). The number of spins was increased to 50, and
then 100. Sophia commented that the result of the final trial (White 52, Black 48) was “pretty
close” to an even result but that this was less surprising than the even outcomes seen earlier.
Sophia displayed a good appreciation of the theoretical expectation of the events, but also of
the uncertainty involved.
The initial interaction using 2-colour spinners, both real and computer-generated,
established that Sophia’s understanding of the theoretical probability of equally likely events
was well formed. Her comments indicated she was able to “list outcomes of chance
experiments involving equally likely outcomes” (ACARA, 2018, ACMSP116). Sophia also
showed an appreciation of the uncertainty involved in chance events when she made comments
like, “it depends on the spinner,” “It wouldn’t be 50:50,” and “the spinner’s not meant to do it
every time.” The activities enabled her to compare the frequencies observed across repeated
trials to make predictions about likely outcomes (ACARA, 2018, ACMSP146).
3. Using a 4-coloured spinner

To determine if Sophia’s understanding extended beyond situations involving a 50% chance,
she was introduced to a 4-colour spinner (see Figure 1). When asked the chance of the spinner
landing on Blue, Sophia stated accurately the theoretical probability: “one quarter chance of
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getting Blue.” When asked if it were more likely that she would get Blue, or any other colour,
Sophia decided to give the spinner a try before answering. The spinner landed on Red, so
Sophia decided it was more likely to land on Red than Blue. Taken at face value, this discussion
suggests Sophia had a naïve understanding of chance-related concepts beyond a 50% likelihood;
however, her responses to further questions indicated otherwise.
I: But is it more likely to land on Red, or on any of the other three colours?
Sophia: It would be any other colour, more likely to be any other colour than just
one colour.
I: Ok. So, if we did 20 spins, how often do you think it would land on Red?
Sophia: About 5 times.
I: Why do you think it would land on Red about 5 times?
Sophia: Because maybe it will land on the other three more. It would be 5 for Red,
5 for Yellow, 5 for Green, and 5 for Blue.
I: Will it actually do this, do you think?
Sophia: No, with a spinner you don’t know where it’s going to land.
I: Why don’t you know?
Sophia: Because even if you spin, you don’t know where it’s going to go.
Next, a trial of 20 spins of the 4-colour spinner was conducted. Discussion following the
outcome of the trial (Blue 7, Red 6, Green 4, and Yellow 3) confirmed that Sophia’s
understanding of the theoretical probability of chance events relating to equally likely
outcomes was well established.
Sophia: Blue won!
I: Is this what you expected?
Sophia: No, I expected them all to stay the same.
As with the earlier activities, Sophia also recognised that the outcome did not match the
theoretical probability.
I: Did you really expect them all to be the same?
Sophia: No. That’s just what I predicted.
I: You predicted 5 each but you didn’t really expect it?
Sophia: Yep.
4. Consolidating understanding using a random generator

One of the benefits of using a computer-generated spinner is that the number of spins can be
increased and many trials conducted in a fraction of the time required to do the same task with
a hands-on spinner. To check and consolidate Sophia’s understanding, a 4-colour spinner with
8
equal segments was created using TinkerPlots (see Figure 2). Six trials of 20 spins were run,
none of which resulted in an even distribution for each colour (see Figure 6). When asked if
the outcome would ever be “5 all”, Sophia commented that she was hopeful but “not sure.”
Without prompting, Sophia suggested that “maybe it’s more likely to be even if we do 100
spins.” The earlier discussion on increasing the number of trials may have influenced this
suggestion, or perhaps Sophia already had, although only in Year 4, an intuitive appreciation
that by increasing the number of spins the results are more likely to “tend to the prediction”
(ACARA, 2018, elaboration to ACMSP145). Accordingly, the number of spins was increased
to 100. The first trial “didn’t do it” (Blue 30, Red 26, Green 25, and Yellow 21) but the next
trial was closer (Red 26, Yellow 25, Green 25, Blue 24). Sophia remarked, “I said maybe we’d
get it and we almost did.”
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Trial 1 Trial 2
Trial 3 Trial 4
Trial 5 Trial 6
Figure 6. Plots displaying the outcome of the 6 trials.
10
Sophia continued to explore the TinkerPlots Sampler, increasing the number of spins
each time. For 1000 spins, the results were Yellow 269, Red 257, Blue 237 and Green 237,
prompting Sophia to comment that, “In a perfect world it would be 250 each. But it’s unlikely
to happen that way. You never know what’s going to happen.” Sophia’s comment that “you
never know what’s going to happen” is an example of her appreciation of the uncertainty
associated with the randomness in chance events (Watson et al., 2013).
TinkerPlots can support this student understanding of variation in the way it displays
data as seen in Figure 6, and the Digital Technologies section of the Australian Curriculum
advocates the use of software to “interpret and visualise data to create information” (ACARA,
2018, ACTDIP016). Using the Counts feature, the Plot can display the number of cases,
allowing students to see easily the number of times the spinner landed on each colour. Even
more powerfully, however, Counts can show the percent of cases for each of the colours. As
exemplified in Figure 7, although the number of cases for each colour (the frequency) may not
be 250, the percentage is very close to the theoretical probability of 25%. The visual picture
of the stacked dots, compared for example with those in Figure 6, coupled with the
mathematical information displayed (frequency and percentage) provides strong evidence that,
for larger data sets, the outcome tends towards the theoretical probability, the second
expectation part of randomness. For primary students it is also a valuable reinforcement of the
meaning of percentage and its usefulness in a real-world setting (Watson & English, 2013).
Figure 7. Example of two Plots showing the results of different trials of 1000 spins.
5. Concluding the session

The teaching session concluded with Sophia commenting on what she had learned.
This has taught me not to bet all my money on something that could fail. Imagine if you
bet your house and you failed. You’d be homeless! The spinners don’t do what you think
11
they’re going to do. They do something that you don’t expect, or when you least expect it
they do what you first wanted them to do.
The concepts of uncertainty and randomness were at the heart of Sophia’s discussion. She
knew that spinners are not a safe bet, that they “don’t do what you think they’re going to do.”
Progressing through the activities, Sophia built on her knowledge of chance related concepts,
moving back and forth between an informal awareness and a more theoretical understanding
of the probability built into the different spinners.
Limitations
The results presented here are drawn from interactions with a single student in a non-traditional
teaching situation. A larger sample of Year 4 students would have provided some additional
insight into different levels of student understanding of the chance-related concepts covered in
this article. It will therefore be of interest to compare Sophia’s experiences and understanding
with those of the students in the main research project as they progress through the activities
in their classroom setting.
Discussion
As Baker and Chick (2007, p. 12) aptly stated, “we cannot leave the teaching of Chance to
chance.” The rich exchange that took place between Sophia and the first author shows the
potential for the activities described here to support students to understand the random nature
of some chance events, and, perhaps more importantly, the role that large numbers of trials
play when trying to link the “real” world to theoretical mathematical concepts. The exchange
also revealed that perhaps some students have an intuitive understanding of theoretical
probability. Sophia confidently identified the theoretical outcome for each of the spinners (a
50% or 25% chance) and only voiced uncertainty when questioned directly about possible
outcomes of trials. The interaction between Sophia and the first author demonstrates the power
of probing questions to elicit student thinking. Rather than assuming Sophia’s initial response
conveyed all she wanted to say, or all she knew, further questions were asked to extract more
information or clarify her thinking. Used in a classroom setting, probing questions can extend
students’ knowledge beyond factual recall and push students to use previous knowledge in
unfamiliar or new situations (e.g., Sahin, 2007; Turner, 2010).
Sophia’s experiences demonstrate that hands-on and computer-generated spinner
activities have the potential to allow students to develop the mathematical skills and knowledge
that are required to understand concepts addressed in the Statistics and Probability strand of
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the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2018). Furthermore, although previously inexperienced

in the use of TinkerPlots, the child-friendly usability of the program meant that Sophia quickly
became familiar with the features and was soon able to organise the spinner to increase the
number of spins as she desired. Her learning thus became increasingly more self-guided and
self-motivated. She was learning through “tinkering” with the program. And despite being
unable to articulate the reason why the results got closer to the theoretical probability with a
larger number of spins (e.g., 25% for the 4-colour spinner), Sophia displayed the intuition that
is inherent in randomness but lacked the appropriate language to express it. It is important,
therefore, to begin introducing chance terminology as early as possible to help students build
upon their intuitions so they can use sophisticated words like “randomness” appropriately. It is
anticipated that if students are given access to software such as TinkerPlots and appropriate
teacher guidance, similar learning would occur in regular classrooms.
Other experiences of the authors show that students working individually or
collaboratively with TinkerPlots in the classroom need very little instruction and build
understanding based on the immediate feedback from the completion of many trials. Working
with a virtual die in TinkerPlots, for example, a class of Grade 6 students explored and
discussed the concepts of variation and expectation in depth (Watson & English, 2015). Many
more affordances of TinkerPlots, apart from modelling random behaviour, are canvassed in
Watson and Fitzallen (2016).
Acknowledgements
The research project behind the pilot study reported here was funded by an Australian Research Council
Discovery Project [DP150100120]. The authors would like to acknowledge and thank Sophia for
generously giving her time to assist with the study.
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2018). Australian Curriculum.
Sydney: Author. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/
Baker, M., & Chick, H. (2007). Making the most of chance. Australian Primary Mathematics
Classroom, 12(1), 8-13.
Kim, Y. (2010). The pilot study in qualitative inquiry: Identifying issues and learning lessons
for culturally competent research. Qualitative Social Work, 10(2), 190-206.
Konold, C., & Miller, C. D. (2015). TinkerPlots: Dynamic Data Exploration [Computer
software, Version 2.3.2]. Adelaide, SA: Learn Troop.
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Moore, D. S. (1990). Uncertainty. In L. A. Steen (Ed.), On the shoulders of giants: New

approaches to numeracy (pp. 95-137). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Sahin, A. (2007). Teachers’ classroom questions. School Science and Mathematics, 107(1),
369-370.
Sampson, H. (2004). Navigating the waves: The usefulness of a pilot in qualitative research.
Qualitative Research, 4(3), 383-402.
Turner, D. W. (2010). Qualitative interview design: A practical guide for novice investigators.
The Qualitative Report, 15(3), 754-760. Retrieved from
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol15/iss3/19
Watson, J. M. (2007). The foundations of chance and data. Australian Primary Mathematics
Classroom, 12(1), 4-7.
Watson, J. M., Collis, K. F., & Moritz, J. B. (1997). The development of chance measurement.
Mathematics Education Research Journal, 9(1), 60-82.
Watson, J., & English, L. (2013). The power of percent. Australian Primary Mathematics
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Wright, S., Watson, J., & Fitzallen, N. (2019).

Exploring one student’s intuitive ideas about chance

Exploring one student’s intuitive ideas about chance using TinkerPlots

Suzie Wright, Jane Watson, and Noleine Fitzallen

Figure 1. The 2- and 4-colour spinners used in the trial.

Figure 2. Sophia using a computer-generated spinner.

Teaching sequence and key discussion points

1. Introduction to the hands-on spinner

Figure 3. Results of the first trial of 20 spins.

Sophia’s initial discussion showed an intuitive understanding of the theoretical

I: Ok, but can you tell me why this might happen?

2. Introduction to a computer-generated spinner

3. Using a 4-coloured spinner

4. Consolidating understanding using a random generator

Figure 6. Plots displaying the outcome of the 6 trials.

5. Concluding the session

the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2018). Furthermore, although previously inexperienced

Moore, D. S. (1990). Uncertainty. In L. A. Steen (Ed.), On the shoulders of giants: New

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