The impact of tutor, extract and word on the correct definition of lexically ambiguous words in statistics

Abstract

Lexical ambiguity arises when a word from everyday English is used differently, with a specific meaning, in a particular discipline, such as statistics. This paper reports on a project that studies the effect of such words within the context of extracts from scholarly articles on students’ ability to define lexically ambiguous words correctly and statistically. The effect of the tutor on students’ ability to overcome lexical ambiguity after a one semester introductory Statistics course is also studied.