Explaining the frequentist interpretation of probability with simulations in R software Experience Reports

Abstract

The frequentist interpretation of probability may not be so clear to students when they are only presented to texts and formulas. In this context, the professor can use ludic strategies in order to the students to absorb such content in a more enlightening way. Through scripts created by the author in the R language, an activity was performed out with students of the discipline of probability from the Production Engineering course at a university, in which they could visualize this concept through simulations of draws and graphical and tabular representations. Each person present in the classroom simulated 100 replications of the same random experiment, recording the relative frequency of occurrence of the event of interest after 100 replications. The average of these relative frequencies resulted in a value very close to the probability of the chosen event (obtained via classical interpretation), making the frequentist interpretation more enlightening for students.