Excel as a tool to enhance learning of probability

Abstract

Probability is often an immensely challenging topic for students at the secondary level. The main difficulty for these students often lies in their inability to relate the theories learnt in classroom to their everyday lives. It is for this reason that lessons on the topic of Probability, especially those at the introductory level, rely heavily on hands-on activities. As empirical probabilities will only converge to the results predicted by theory, implementation of hands-on activities is, inherently, ridden with problems and difficulties. The problem is so acute that ‘mistake-prone’, ‘repetitive’ and ‘time consuming’ are but a few phrases which students have associated with traditional hands-on activities. This apparent lack of meaningful hands-on activities has motivated the authors to develop an IT-based discovery activity for the topic of Probability at the secondary level. Microsoft’s Excel has been embraced by the authors in automating the counting and calculations involved in obtaining experimental probabilities which would otherwise be cumbersome to obtain. To enhance the appeal of the discovery, the authors have used the game of Monopoly as the theme of analysis. This paper provides pertinent details of the discovery activity. It also describes the benefits and possible barriers to successful implementation of the activity.