Abstract:

The fundamental purpose of the process of statistics learning is to introduce the student in the logic of statistical reasoning, which includes handling abstract language, a structure of conceptual relationships and some operational mathematics applied on them. A complete and significant description of statistics is very difficult to build without the help of language and some concepts that go beyond the everyday experience of the students, in particular, those of Social Sciences.

Formal, technical or colloquial language necessary to understand the properties and statistical relationships play a key role in determining the contents of statistics teaching-learning procedures, whose aim is that the student introduces new paradigms, which are useful when facing reality, uncertainty being its essential part. In addition, social sciences students need abstract language as they need basic education on scientific methods suitable for those areas, which should be similar to the one received by science and engineering students.

Statistical creativity consists of getting new results from previous ones, and involves imagination, ability to clearly perceive complex situations, and a variety of skills and solving problems methods based on practical experience and algebraic and reading abilities. The process of statistics language acquisition is the set of linguistic structures which enrich the various representations of the events or phenomena under study. These elements when combined make it possible to understand a theory, situation or problem and its transformation into knowledge. From this perspective, scientific rigor does not necessarily imply the development of a set of theorems and corollaries demonstrations but the ability to identify problems and find solving methods for them. And this requires handling certain linguistic structures to adequately interpret problems and find solutions to them.

On the other hand, unlike mathematics which is associated with unique solutions, in statistics several solutions can be validated according to the approaches considered in the problem and the simplifications considered as plausible.

In this regard, the diagnosis of students, shared by the vast majority of teachers, shows that among the most important sources of shortcomings we may find their oral and written disabilities, which are evident in their vocabulary and grammatical failings, their difficulties in problem drafting, and their serious limitations for abstract representation and algebraic reading. This situation is emphasised by the strong impact of the use of SMS and virtual chats and forums.

In spite of this, most of the literature on statistics learning, especially in the area of social sciences, emphasizes the aspects related to the methodological and operational mechanisms and minimizes those related to representation and interpretive language.

Keywords:

abstract language, interpretive language, learning, teaching statistics.