It is well known that students of inferential statistics find the hypothetical, probabilistic reasoning used in hypothesis tests difficult to understand. Consequently, they will also have difficulties in understanding p-values. It is not unusual for these students to hold misconceptions about p-values that are difficult to remove. In this study, 19 Australian tertiary statistics educators were surveyed about their beliefs about p-values, and it was found that some of these instructors held misconceptions about the nature of p-values. These findings suggest that professional learning of statistics instructors is urgently required so that instructors may have their beliefs challenged and corrected.
History
Publication title
Proceedings of the 40th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia
Editors
A Downton, S Livy, J Hall
Pagination
428-433
ISBN
978-1-920846-30-5
Department/School
Faculty of Education
Publisher
The Mathematics Education Research group of Australasia Inc.
Place of publication
Adelaide, Australia
Event title
40th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia