Identification and definition of lexically ambiguous words in statistics by tutors and students

Lexical ambiguity arises when a word from everyday English is used differently in a particular discipline, such as statistics. This paper reports on a project that begins by identifying tutors' perceptions of words that are potentially lexically ambiguous to students, in two different ways. Students' definitions of nine lexically ambiguous words are also collected at the beginning and end of a semester of introductory statistics study, in a complex design taking account of multiple tutors and multiple words in multiple contexts. Tutor perceptions and actual student difficulties at the beginning of a semester are compared. The lexical ambiguity associated with the word 'significance' is shown to be evident in students even after completing an introductory statistics course.