Teaching Statistics in Language Testing Courses

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the literature on teaching statistics for useful ideas that teachers of language testing courses can draw on and incorporate into their teaching toolkits as they see fit. To those ends, the article addresses eight questions: What is known generally about teaching statistics? Why are students so anxious about statistics? How can teachers help students overcome statistics anxiety? What teaching approaches that have been tried and worked? What classroom tools have proven effective? What topics should we cover? What advice does the literature offer? And, where can teachers find more information? This overview of research and reflections on these topics should prove useful to anyone facing the prospect of teaching testing statistics to language teachers.