Sunday, January 4, 2015

Lost in Translation, the Statistics Edition


If you speak multiple languages, then you're very much aware of words that easily get lost in translation. If you speak "Statistics," this happens just the same. Students tell me that one of the hardest things about learning Statistics is the vocabulary, learning and using the terminology correctly. Being a Statistics teacher has made me increasingly aware of certain statistical vocabulary that students, and people in general, use that often don't mean exactly what they think they mean.

Here are five statistical words and concepts that I think can sometimes get lost in translation: