Gender perspective in attitudes towards probability and its teaching in pre-service Chilean teachers

Considering that promoting a positive disposition towards probability and statistics has been established as one of the priority goals of the reformist movement regarding their teaching in schools, this study adopts a gender perspective to address the objective of analyzing attitudes towards probability and its teaching in a sample of 269 pre-service Chilean mathematics teachers. Through a quantitative methodology and with a descriptive scope, statistical differences are identified between the attitudes declared by female and male participants based on the assumed theoretical perspective. The results generally reflect positive attitudes both among future female teachers and future male teachers. However, attitudes were significantly more positive in the male group regarding their feelings of liking towards probability and the tendency to use the content to solve problems when appropriate. The study concludes with a discussion of the proposed goals in contrast to previous literature and projects the findings as input to consider affective aspects in the initial training of teachers responsible for teaching probability in schools, as well as the inclusion of a gender perspective in a comprehensive manner throughout this process.