Resumo

OLIVO, Eusebio; BATANERO, Carmen  e  DIAZ, Carmen. Dificultades de comprensión del intervalo de confianza en estudiantes universitarios. Educ. mat [online]. 2008, vol.20, n.3, pp. 5-32. ISSN 1665-5826.

We present the results from a research directed to assess students' understanding of confidence intervals in engineering undergraduate students. A questionnaire composed by 12 multiple choice items and two open problems was given to a sample of 252 engineering students after they studied the topic. Results suggest that students do not understand the random character of the interval limits, assign a Bayesian interpretation to the confidence coefficient or do not understand the effect of several factors on the interval width. Other difficulties are related to selecting an adequate distribution in building an interval, computing the degrees of freedom or finding the critical values.

Palavras-chave : confidence intervals; assessment; university students.