Mathematics teachers' understandings of hypothesis testing

Hypothesis testing is one of the key concepts in statistics, yet it is also one of the least understood concepts. The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' understandings of hypothesis testing, in an effort to generate insights in ways of supporting teachers' learning and enhancing teachers' capacity in designing effective strategies for teaching hypothesis testing. To this end, we conducted a professional development seminar and interviews with 8 high school statistics teachers in 2001 in Southeast US, in which we attempted to unpack the difficulties and conceptual obstacles teachers encountered as they tried to conduct or make sense of hypothesis testing. We found that teachers' difficulties in understanding and employing hypothesis testing were expressed in their non-stochastic conceptions of probability, their lack of understanding of the logic of indirect argument, and them not having conceived of hypothesis testing as a tool for making statistical inference. We conclude the article by offering promising pedagogical approaches for developing a deep and coherent understanding of hypothesis testing.