The development of statistical literacy in applied linguistics graduate students (original) (raw)
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Revista Amazonia Investiga, 2018
Researchers, students, and practitioners in the area of English language studies often avoid statistics which may be due to their fear of its numeric nature and high technicality. This paper presents the findings of a study that investigated a small group of postgraduate students’ attitudes toward learning statistics. The respondents were 20 postgraduate students from the language faculty of a public university in Malaysia. Schau et al.’s (1995) Survey of Attitudes toward Statistics was used to elicit the data. The quantitative findings indicated the majority of students had moderately positive attitudes toward learning statistics. These findings also indicated how a two-day workshop could significantly improve these postgraduate students' attitude toward learning statistics. The qualitative results revealed that the students regarded statistics workshops as highly necessary and could make their results more presentable and credited. The results highlight the necessity of more and better statistics courses and workshops for students in similar areas.
Journal of Quantitative Linguistics, 2018, 2018
The main objective of this study is to assess the levels of statistical use (basic, intermediate, and advanced) in Applied Linguistics research articles over the past three decades (from 1986 to 2015). The corpus included 4079 quantitative and mixed-methods studies published in ten prominent journals of Applied Linguistics. The articles were analysed and the statistical techniques used were aggregated by two current writers and four PhD students in TEFL. Results showed that descriptive statistics (40.04%) were by far the most commonly used technique followed by one-way ANOVA (14.91%), t-test (10.15%), and Pearson correlation (8.76%). Regarding the sophistication level of statistical use, about 78.77% (n = 4686) of the techniques were classified as basic, 14.49% (n = 862) as intermediate, and 6.74% (n = 401) as advanced. Clearly, most of the techniques were either basic or intermediate, with a significant higher percentage for the former. So, a person with basic knowledge of statistics could understand 69.03% of the papers published during 1986 to 2015. It is discussed that researchers should be updated on recent statistical knowledge if they wish to statistically comprehend research articles published in Applied Linguistics journals.
An Investigation of the Predictors of Statistical Literacy in Second Language Acquisition
The use of statistics in second language acquisition (SLA) research has increased over the past 30-40 years and continues to increase in both complexity and sophistication (Gass, 2009; Loewen & Gass, 2009). The increased use of statistical procedures has drawn attention to the current state of statistical literacy among second language (L2) researchers. Statistical literacy is a critical skill to acquire on the parts of both the producers and consumers of L2 research. However, it is a relatively new research topic in the field. So, little is known regarding what factors play key roles in the development of statistical literacy. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate the predictors of statistical literacy in SLA. One hundred and twenty SLA doctoral students took a statistical background questionnaire and a discipline-specific statistics survey. A series of multiple regression analyses were conducted on the statistics survey data. The results indicated that number of statistics courses taken, quantitative research orientation, and self-training in statistics were the significant predictors of statistical literacy. In light of the findings of this study, several suggestions directed toward improving statistical literacy in the field of SLA were made.
STATISTICS EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL, 2013
The framework of linguistic register and case study research on Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) learning statistics informed the construction of a quantitative instrument, the Communication, Language, And Statistics Survey (CLASS). CLASS aims to assess whether ELLs and non-ELLs approach the learning of statistics differently with respect to the distinctive linguistic features of the field of statistics and with respect to language resources they bring to the class. The CLASS was administered to all (n = 137) students in an introductory statistics literacy course at a university with a majority Mexican-American student body. Findings suggest ELLs often have distinctive patterns in how they experience aspects of statistics instruction (e.g., wait time) as well as movement between mathematics/statistics and everyday registers. First published November 2013 at Statistics Education Research Journal Archives
LEARNING THE LANGUAGE OF STATISTICS: CHALLENGES AND TEACHING APPROACHES 1
Learning statistics requires learning the language of statistics. Statistics draws upon words from general English, mathematical English, discipline-specific English and words used primarily in statistics. This leads to many linguistic challenges in teaching statistics and the way in which the language is used in statistics creates an extra layer of challenge. This paper identifies several challenges in teaching statistics related to language. Some implications for the effective learning and teaching of statistics are raised and methods to help students overcome these linguistic challenges are suggested.
Learning the Language of Statistics: Challenges and Teaching Approaches
STATISTICS EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL, 2016
Learning statistics requires learning the language of statistics. Statistics draws upon words from general English, mathematical English, discipline-specific English and words used primarily in statistics. This leads to many linguistic challenges in teaching statistics and the way in which the language is used in statistics creates an extra layer of challenge. This paper identifies several challenges in teaching statistics related to language. Some implications for the effective learning and teaching of statistics are raised and methods to help students overcome these linguistic challenges are suggested. First published May 2016 at Statistics Education Research Journal Archives
Language and Discourse in the Learning of Statistical Concepts
MSOR Connections
Students on Business School courses will require a certain level of numerical ability; therefore, Mathematics and Statistics are important elements of the curriculum (Cottee et. al., 2014). Students often struggle with these quantitative parts of their course and this is sometimes seen as part of a general "Mathematics Problem" that impacts many disciplines including biology, economics, nursing and psychology (Mac an Bhaird and Lawson, 2012). Many students find Statistics in particular a difficult subject as it includes concepts which are complex and even counter-intuitive. For these students the way in which statistical ideas are communicated and specifically the use of language and discourse are of great importance.This paper reports on ongoing research into the role of language and discourse in teaching and learning Statistics. Included are: Findings from a Pilot Enquiry carried out in 2019; the theoretical background to the research and the challenges presented by the ...