Non-symbolic probabilistic judgment in children: Intuitive biases, grade-level differences, and latent class analysis

Abstract

This study aims to explore children's performance in non-symbolic probabilistic judgment tasks, with a focus on grade-related differences in intuitive biases and potential individual differences. A total of 415 students from grades 2–5 completed a probability judgment task under two conditions: a congruent condition (the more targets, the higher probability) and an incongruent condition (the more targets, the lower probability). The results showed that children across all grade levels had higher accuracy in the congruent condition than in the incongruent condition. Grade-level differences were observed: fifth graders exhibited a significantly larger congruency advantage than second graders, driven primarily by their higher accuracy on the congruent condition. Furthermore, latent class analysis (LCA) identified four distinct subgroups: (1) a high-probability judgment ability group, (2) a group with high congruent accuracy but chance-level incongruent performance, (3) a low-ability group with a strong reversal bias, and (4) a low-ability group highly influenced by intuitive interference. These findings suggest that intuitive biases in children's probabilistic reasoning remain prevalent and manifest in distinct individual patterns. This study provides new evidence on grade-level differences in children's probabilistic reasoning and offers practical insights for mathematics education and probability cognition training.