Students' Comprehension On Independent Event

This essay interpreted the results of a research conducted among Grade 11 Students in two top senior high schools in Henan with regard to their comprehension on the topic of independent event. Questionnaire and individual interviews were conducted in this study. The purpose of the study was to find out students' difficulties in comprehending the concept of independent event and to provide some suggestions for textbooks editing and practical teaching.The questionnaire was given to 353 Grade 11 students in two top senior high schools in Henan Province. Based on the information obtained from the questionnaire, 12 students and seven of the students' mathematics teachers were interviewed. The research questions of this study were:1. How did the students explain the concept of independent events by diagram ?2. What is the different meaning of the word "Independence" in daily life and in mathematics?3. What methods students adopt to solve independence? What were the difficulties the students met when they figured out probabilities of independent events occurring?4. What teaching methods the teachers adopt for the topic of independent events?The research shows that most of the students were confused two events being independent and two events being mutually exclusive when they were required to interpret the concept of independence by diagram. This error misled them in showing whether two events are independent and figuring out probabilities. In addition, their daily comprehension of the word of independence had a negative impact on their understanding of the mathematical term of independence. They believed if one event occurring has no influence on the other event occurring then the two events are independent, which showed their comprehension was in a relatively shallow level. They did not actually know the essence of the term independence. The students' intuitive knowledge for three mutually independent events was almost wrong. The teachers usually followed the textbooks in their teaching without creative working on this topic. Furthermore, due to the few scores it accounts for in university entrance examinations, the topic does not arouse enough attention of teachers and students.In the end of this essay, basing on the study, some suggestions were given to curriculum developers and schoolteachers.