Different Perspectives on Learning Statistics

At the most graduate schools of education around the globe, students are required to take basic Statistics courses for their future research including thesis and dissertation even though some of students do not have any background of Statistics. The current study investigates how do they narrate and reflect upon challenges to study Statistics via qualitative methods. Considering different strata, international and native, this study examines how they differently react to this issue. In-depth interviews were used as the primary data collection and a focus group interview with international students was further employed. Preliminary results suggest that the international students’ most challenging factor is language issue rather than the subject itself, while domestic students are more interested in how the subject is taught.