The aim of this research was to assess mathematical knowledge for teaching probability (using a frequentist approach) in prospective elementary teachers. Common knowledge of content is analysed based on individual answers to an open problem by 157 Spanish prospective primary school teachers. After discussing with the participants their responses to the problem, two components of pedagogical knowledge are also analysed in 81 of these prospective teachers, working in small groups: (a) to assess specialized content knowledge, we ask participants to identify the mathematical contents in the task; (b) to assess knowledge of content and students, we ask participants to identify which are correct or incorrect among some responses given to the task by children. While in the first part of the assessment we observed misconceptions, such as equiprobability bias, representativeness heuristic and underestimation of sampling variation, in the second, participants recognised the correct and incorrect answers of students and could explain the reasons for their errors. Although their didactic knowledge was still poor, since they identified few mathematical objects in the task, we deduce the usefulness of the activity to develop the mathematical knowledge of teachers.
Probability; Frequentist Approach; Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching; Teacher Education
