Lexical Ambiguity in Statistics: The Interaction Between Normal and Average

• Activity Number: 443
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Neal Rogness* and Chao Beatrice Zhang and Diane Fisher and Jennifer Kaplan
• Companies: Grand Valley State University and University of Georgia and University of Louisiana at Lafayette and University of Georgia
• Keywords: Lexical ; Communication ; Education ; Normal ; Average ; Ambiguity

Abstract

Confusing the meanings of the words normal and average is common in many published reports in the media. Furthermore, disciplines such as medicine and meteorology use these terms either interchangeably or differently from statistics and/or each other. Even statisticians do not agree on the use of the term average. In our research on lexical ambiguity, the study of words with multiple meanings, we have found that students tend to define the word average as typical or normal and the word normal as typical or average and that these definitions persist after instruction. This poster will present results from studies of undergraduate student use of the words normal and average both before and after traditional instruction and provide suggestions for addressing the lexical ambiguity associated with this pair of words.