When people interpret the outcome of a research study, do they consider other relevant information such as prior research? In the current study, 251 college graduates read a single brief fictitious news article. The article summarized the findings of a study that found positive results for a new drug. Three versions of the article varied the…

Basic knowledge of ideas of causal inference can help students to think beyond data, that is, to think more clearly about the data generating process. Especially for (maybe big) observational data, qualitative assumptions are important for the conclusions drawn and interpretation of the quantitative results. Concepts of causal inference can also…

How does the student untrained in advanced statistics interpret results of research that reports a group difference? In two studies, statistically untrained college students were presented with abstracts or professional associations' reports and asked for estimates of scores obtained by the original participants in the studies. These estimates…

Our research addresses the role that context expertise plays when students compare data. We report findings from a study conducted in 3 countries: Australia, United States, and Thailand. In each country, six middle school students analyzed authentic data relating to selected students' areas of interest. We examined the data analysis processes and…

Context is identified as an important factor when considering the learning of informal statistical inferential reasoning, but research in this area is very limited. This small exploratory study in one grade 10 (14 year olds) classroom seeks to learn more about the role context plays in learners' inferential reasoning, where both teacher and…

In three experiments, the authors investigated whether statistical language influences readers' interpretations of research results. Although the authors argue that "significant" language changes should not be mandated for quantitative research studies in scientific journals, if such changes are mandated, then use of the term "statistical" is…

To study how the organization of information affects the way that information is interpreted, a total of 404 undergraduates in two studies (151 and 253 students, respectively) solved statistical reasoning problems based on data presented in a variety of types of graphs and tables. When assessing relative probabilities, students were equally…